Good, bad books are the answer sometimes

I don’t always read very high-brow Latin American literature. After all, I have been living in the United States for eight years, and some of its pop culture has to stick on me somehow.

About two month ago, one of my friends told me to read Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. Well, I am hooked to the series. And in the middle of midterms, reading something a little lighter is a relief (or so I tell myself in order to feel less guilty).

Now, the book is going to be turned into a major motion picture, and I plan to be there for the premiere on Nov. 21. I know that I said that books do not translate well into movies, but in the case of good, bad books like this one, I don’t think that there is much to tamper with.

It is a joke among Twilight geeks, like me, to spend hours gazing at the screen and looking at the trailers for the movie. But yesterday, the same friend who let me borrow the first book of the series, showed me the trailer for the movie in Spain.

Well, the translation is hilarious.

The characters all have very heavy Spanish (from Spain) accents. They all linger on the “s” like most Spaniards do and have a certain emphasis to words that is only noticeable by Latin Americans.

In my mind, Edward speaks perfect English and not perfect Spanish.

My place as a resident of the United States

Last night I was finishing “La Suma de los Dias” , or “The Sum of Our Days,” by Isabel Allende and she worded my own worries. On the last chapters she explained how she had finally reunited her “tribe”, which consists of her immediate family and her friends in California, to have them scatter again thanks to the irresponsibility of President George Bush’s administration.

I’ve seen this myself.

When I came to the United States from Colombia eight years ago, I came with my whole family that consists of about 20 people and we all settled in South Florida. Now, after years of struggle trying to get a green card, most of my “tribe” left the United States and headed back to Colombia because of the same reasons Allende discussed in her book.

Allende has similar fears. In the book, she mentions her friend Tabra, an American, who decided to leave the United States and go to Costa Rica just like she left the country during the Vietnam War to protest Richard Nixon’s administration.

Allende also mentions two relatively recent instances when the United States has violated human rights without much consequence: Guantánamo Bay , Cuba, and the incident of the Abu Ghraib prison. The New Yorker published a story about torture at the prison complex the same year Bush was re-elected and some of the wrongdoings that were reported are:

Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.

I really don’t think that any of the above mentioned abuses of authority fit into the Geneva Convention agreements dealing with the treatment of war prisoners.

Such atrocities against humanity are really bothering me, and Allende is in tune with me on these issues. Like me, she is a legal resident of the United States and lives here while she stays in touch with her own country. However, she is indirectly (or directly) part of this country. Residents of the United States pay the same taxes citizens pay but have no power over the electoral process. Only citizens of the United States are allowed to vote.

Allende really made me wonder about my place in the United States. Outrages like these ones really make me wonder if someday I want to become a citizen. However, thinking about the power that United States’ citizens have by voting in the upcoming elections somehow makes me reconsider. This is definitively a right I don’t want to pass on.

Literary brain drain

There is a common denominator among my favorite authors: they are all in exile.

As I pondered about this fact, I thought about what is wrong with Latin American countries that governments are so messed up that the brightest minds are fleeing the countries (and in many cases, they don’t go back).

Right now, I’m reading “The Sum of Our Days” by Isabel Allende. In this book she is narrating her life in California, where she lives with her American husband, Willie. When I finish this book, which is her latest, I will let you know what I think about it. But for now, I am going to examine why the brilliant minds are leaving Latin America to go elsewhere.

Mainly, I believe their prominent status as literary geniuses in their countries leads them to get too involved. In other cases, they are forced to flee because of their connections with a vanquished regime.

As much as I like to think about myself as a citizen of the world, I realize my identity lies in Colombia. This really leads me to wonder about these people. How do they live in anonymity after spending years as local celebrities?

I came across a very thoughtful story mentioning Isabel Allende and her loss of identity. This piece also talks about Allende’ status as an expatriate and how one is not really adopted into another country. Also, the person’ status as a native of his or her own country, changes radically. This results in people not being from any one place. Somehow, expatriates are left in the limbo of citizenship and identity. When one returns to the country of origin, everything falls out of place and many times it is easier to live in the memory of the country, with all the former glory of the past.

In “My Invented Country”, Allende also talks about Chile and its former glory. She explores her own nationalism and her reaction to San Francisco when she arrived. The Chile she describes is the Chile of her memory.

When I read Allende’s books, I always wonder how different the Chile she is describing looks now because the Colombia of my childhood, is a very different one to the blooming one that I see every time I go back. Maybe she prefers the glory of old Chile, but I really want to know how she is really adapting to her new life with an American husband, without the decorations of a memoir for her daughter Paula, who died in the mid nineties. It really leaves me wondering of how much of the fantastic elements make their way into this “factual” piece.