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HOW I LEARNED ENGLISH:
55 Accomplished Latinos Recall Lessons in Language and Life
WASHINGTON (May 16, 2007)--In bookstores in time for Hispanic Heritage Month -- Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 -- National Geographic's HOW I LEARNED ENGLISH: 55 Accomplished Latinos Recall Lessons in Language and Life (National Geographic Books; ISBN 978-4262-0097-7; Aug. 21, 2007; $16.95), edited by Tom Miller, is an entertaining and inspiring collection of essays by successful Latinos who have endured the trials and tribulations of mastering English.
The 55 contributors -- exceptional authors, poets, playwrights, academics, entertainers, business leaders, scientists, athletes and politicians -- reveal in fascinating, often touching, details the intimate processes each went through to learn the beautiful yet vexing English language.
Congressman José Serrano, for example, describes learning English as a youth from Frank Sinatra records. Authors Oscar Hijuelos and Ariel Dorfman picked up the language as sick children in American hospital beds. Writer Alvaro Vargas Llosa learned the language as a teenager at a British boarding school. Many found it a daunting ordeal; for others, English came easily. But from TV personality Cristina Saralegui to Hall of Fame baseball players Juan Marichal and Orlando Cepeda, every last one remembers what it felt like to do battle with bizarre idioms, irregular verbs and all the other intricacies that tangle the tongue.
In his foreword, author and PBS correspondent Ray Suarez writes, "Learning a language begins a passage to another way of seeing the world and speaking it into existence. For many of the essayists, embarking on a new journey with English was really the beginning of an encounter, a relationship, a maddening and rewarding wrestling match that, for some, continues decades later."
Suarez notes that for many of the writers, the need to learn English was accompanied by wrenching personal circumstances such as exile, illness, economic migration or family dissolution, so mastering the language was an additional challenge for people already battling with sudden change. For others, it was a ticket to a new kind of membership in a changing world; for them, along with wrapping one's mouth around new consonants and learning strange grammar rules came the promise of an exciting adventure.
As poet Richard Blanco puts it in his piece, "When I was a Little Cuban Boy": "O José can you see...that's how I sang it when I was a cubanito in Miami. I wanted to eat yams with the Indians, shake hands with los negros, and dash through snow I'd never seen in a one-horse hope-n-say. I wanted to speak in British, say really smart stuff like fours core and seven years ago or one country under God, in the visible."
The stories are funny, inspiring, sometimes sad. They tell of struggling to fit in, trying desperately to succeed and of assimilating in a new society. Writer Rubén Martínez recalls his experience in his essay, "The Learning Curve": "Kindergarten. I speak English at least as well as Spanish by now. Again, I am in a classroom surrounded by kids weaned on English. Kids who've already learned, or will shortly, that the word Mexican is interchangeable with 'wetback' or 'beaner' or 'greaser.' I will show them that I am not a Mexican. I will speak to them in their language -- it's mine now -- better than they speak to me. I will defend myself with it, use it as a weapon if necessary. I read, I write, I speak in English with tremendous energy. I am holding onto language for dear life, instinctually believing that it can work some magic against history, against the color of my skin and the ring of my surname in a town as WASP-y as L.A. was when I was growing up."
This eclectic, inviting collection speaks to all those who have had to learn English -- immigrants yearning to belong and to achieve, political exiles suddenly far from home and alone, or children who just want to be like everybody else. The contributors' fears and triumphs will resonate with everyone who has shared their exhilarating, yet sometimes exasperating learning experience, whether last year or decades ago.
HOW I LEARNED ENGLISH goes to the heart of the national debate on language and immigration. "This is a book of high linguistic adventure and it's bound to lead to reflection on the lives of people in our own time who slip across our borders," writes acclaimed author Frank McCourt in the book's afterword. "Politics aside, you can only admire the millions who come here and are still coming, who climb the highest mountain of all -- the English language."
"Como Aprendí Inglés," a Spanish-language edition of the book, will be available Sept. 8.
Editor Tom Miller has been bringing us extraordinary stories of ordinary people for more than 30 years. His highly acclaimed travel books include "The Panama Hat Trail," about South America; "On the Border," an account of his adventures on the U.S.-Mexico frontier; "Trading with the Enemy," which takes readers on his journeys through Cuba; and "Jack Ruby's Kitchen Sink," about the American Southwest, which won the Lowell Thomas Award for Best Travel Book of 2000. Miller also has written for Smithsonian, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Life and many other publications. He lives in Tucson, Ariz.
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Contacts:
Chandra Teitscheid
National Geographic
(202) 828-6678
cteitsch@ngs.org
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