REVIEWS

"Language can also reflect the way different cultures come together to shape the lives of immigrant families. My favorite Spanish word is a made up name that captures my Galician, Spanish, and American cultures. When I was a boy I ventured out during two consecutive summers in the early 1980s with my family to “San Quemeiro” beach in Long Island. I spent many long afternoons there swimming and playing soccer with other children from Portugal, Spain, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. I could hear Spanish, Portuguese, and English spoken at the beach, and thought it had that lyrical Galician or Portuguese sounding name because those immigrant communities had settled there. I didn’t find out until years later, when I drove out with some English-speaking high school friends to “San Quemeiro,” that my family had mispronounced the beach’s English name “Sunken Meadow,” and appropriated it to fit our Galician-Spanish background. Today, the made up name evokes for me the real and imagined existence of many Latino immigrants who live between languages."