When solidarity is possible yet fails: A translation critique and reader reception study of Helena María Viramontes’ “El café ‘Cariboo’”

This article provides a methodology for translation critique that combines textual and sociological analysis. The source and target texts of the Chicana short story “The Café Cariboo” / “El café ‘Cariboo’” are examined in connection with a reader reception study. It is argued that the use of Mexican Spanish as the translating language reveals a norm of ethnic appropriateness, while diminishing diversity among the story’s social figures. This suggests that the terms of the debate regarding the translation of Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x literature must be broadened beyond the representation of hybrid identities. As evidence, a discussion of the qualitative data from a translocal reader study conducted with Hispanophone readers of “El café ‘Cariboo’” in Europe and the United States is presented. Different ways of imagining the Anglo, Nicaraguan and Chicana/o characters and the social relations among them are explored in terms of the political implications for construing solidarity.