Article published In: Translation and Translanguaging in Multilingual Contexts
Vol. 11:2 (2025) ► pp.200–217
Unlocking childhood trauma through self‑translation
Migratory grief and linguistic hybridity in Javier Zamora’s Solito
Published online: 20 March 2025
https://doi.org/10.1075/ttmc.00162.sav
https://doi.org/10.1075/ttmc.00162.sav
Abstract
This article examines the role of self-translation as an artistic form of healing from a migration trauma in the current age of mobility. The concept of self-translation, understood as a means of constructing a multilingual self in migrant narratives, plays a key role in Solito, an autobiographical work by Salvadoran-American writer Javier . 2022. Solito: A Memoir. New York: Hogarth., who left El Salvador at the age of nine to travel to the United States and be reunited with his parents. The book presents his efforts to relive the thoughts, fears, and hopes he experienced during this perilous journey solito, without his family. Trapped in the borderland between cultures, languages, and traumas, the author mixes English, Spanish, and Salvadoran slang to translate his traumatic experiences, convey his ongoing sense of ‘in-betweenness’, and reveal his hybrid identity. In this article, using an interdisciplinary approach and drawing upon concepts such as migration, multilingualism, self-translation, and trauma, I analyze how Zamora translates the traumatic memories of his childhood. I suggest that linguistic code-switching is crucial for the writer. English allows Zamora to distance himself from the grief, while Spanish helps him to embrace it and reconcile his condition as a migrant.
Keywords: self-translation, migration, trauma, code-switching, code-mixing, linguistic hybridity
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.(Self-)translation and trauma in Javier Zamora’s narrative
- 3.Javier Zamora as a hybrid migrant writer
- 4.Translating migration trauma in Solito
- 4.1Solito as a self-translation
- 4.2In the borderland between Spanish and English
- 4.3Asymmetrical linguistic relations: Mexican Spanish, caliche, and ‘rotten’ English
- 4.4Towards La USA
- 5.Conclusions
References
References (33)
Apter, Emily S. 2006. The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Beete, Paulette. 2014. “Art Talk with Poet Javier Zamora.” [URL]
Bennett, Karen. 2019. “Introduction. Translation in a Multilingual World: Reflecting Hybridity.” In Hybrid Englishes and the Challenges Of/For Translation, ed. by Karen Bennett, and Rita Queiroz de Barros, 1–18. London: Routledge.
Clauss-Ehlers, Caroline S. 2019. “Forced Migration among Latinx Children and Their Families: Introducing Trilateral Migration Trauma as a Concept to Reflect a Forced Migratory Experience.” Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy 18 (4): 330–342.
Cuéllar, Jorge E. 2023. “Saying Goodbye to Childhood: An Interview with Javier Zamora.” Public Books: A Magazine of Ideas, Arts, and Scholarship. [URL]
Doloughan, Fiona. 2019. “The Problematics and Performance of Self-Translation: The Case of Xiaolu Guo.” In Hybrid Englishes and the Challenges Of/For Translation, ed. by Karen Bennett, and Rita Queiroz de Barros, 21–36. London: Routledge.
Enríquez-Ornelas, Julio. 2020. “Troubling Border Representations in Mexican Cultural Studies and U.S. Central American Cultural Studies.” Prose Studies 41 (2): 129–148.
Grutman, Rainer. 2020 [1998]. “Multilingualism.” In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, ed. by Mona Baker, and Gabriela Saldanha, 341–346. London: Routledge.
Kellmann, Steven G. 2020. Nimble Tongues: Studies in Literary Translingualism. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press.
Manenti, Davide. 2015. “Unshed Tears: Meaning, Trauma and Translation.” In Katherine Mansfield and Translation, ed. by Claire Davison, Gerri Kimber, and Todd Martin, 63–75. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Martínez, Miguel. 2022. “El salvadoreño Javier Zamora cuenta su drama migratorio en su exitoso libro ‘Solito’ [Salvadoran Javier Zamora recounts his migration drama in his bestselling book Solito].” [URL]
McKenzie, Laura. 2021. “‘Through Blackening Pools of Blood’: Trauma and Translation in Robert Graves’s The Anger of Achilles.” Journal of Medical Humanities 42 (2): 253–261.
North, Michael. 2001. “Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Sozaboy: The Politics of ‘Rotten English’.” Public Culture 13 (1): 97–112. [URL]
Pestre, Élise, and Fethi Benslama. 2011. “Translation and Trauma.” Recherches en psychanalyse 11 (1): 18–28.
. 2022. “Translation.” In Transnational Modern Languages: A Handbook, ed. by Jennifer Burns, and Derek Dunkan, 305–312. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Reimann, Chloe Ruth. 2018. “Crossing the Border into Poetry: Documenting the Undocumented and the Trauma of Migration in Javier Zamora’s “Unaccompanied”.” Senior Projects Spring 2018. 250. [URL]
Sakai, Naoki. 2009. “Dislocation in Translation.” TTR: Traduction, Terminologie, Rédaction 22 (1): 167–187.
Stoicea, Gabriela. 2006. “The Difficulties of Verbalizing Trauma: Translation and the Economy of Loss in Claude Lanzmann’s ‘Shoah’.” The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association 39 (2): 43–53.
Theisen-Womersley, Gail. 2021. Trauma and Resilience Among Displaced Populations: A Sociocultural Exploration. Cham: Springer.
Unaccompanied Children Program. Accessed December 23, 2023. [URL]
Vidal Claramonte, Ma Carmen África. 2021. Traducción y literatura translingüe. voces latinas en Estados Unidos [Translation and translingual literature: Latino voices in the United States]. Frankfurt am Main: Iberoamericana and Vervuert.
. 2021. “Changing Places: Translational Narratives of Migration, Cultural Memory and Belonging.” In Translating Worlds: Migration, Memory, and Culture, ed. by Susannah Radstone, and Rita Wilson, 148–163. London: Routledge.
Zamora, Javier. 2015. “Latina/o Poets on Liminal Spaces: A Conversation with Javier Zamora.” Interview by Natalie Scenters-Zapico. The Best American Poetry. [URL]