Por el amor de Pedro Infante

November 11, 2002
In love with Lucio, a married man who won't love her back, Tere Avila, a 30-something Chicana and secretary of the local Pedro Infante Fan Club, escapes into the world of long deceased Mexican movie star Infante. As her covert relationship with Lucio begins to consume her life, Tere becomes increasingly dissatisfied with the choices she has made and realizes that she can no longer use Infante's movies to escape. As chief translator of this 2001 original, Ch vez chose Aguilar Melantzon, an award-winning writer and literature professor at New Mexico State University who has an extensive knowledge of local dialects, including the mix of English and Spanish slang with N huatl and archaic Spanish words that Ch vez uses throughout. Far from a literal translation, this is an outstanding re-creation of how Mexicans and Mexican Americans living in the borderlands would speak. Aguilar Melantzon turns standard English words into Chicano and Calo slang, producing an accurate portrayal of the borderland culture. However, the Spanglish that was so evident in the original text"The married men... stare at the young girls, chiflando... a plastic bag full of tortas..." for exampleis lost in this homogenous Spanish text. This interesting translation experiment is clearly intended for a West Coast Hispanic audience familiar with the borderland dialect, though other non-Mexicans will be able to follow the story in the same way that an American reads works like Trainspotting. Recommended for bookstores and libraries, especially those serving Mexican American patrons.Carmen Ospina, "Criticas"