Margarita Engle explores what it's like to be an outsider in 'Singing with Elephants'

Transcript

A MARTINEZ, HOST:

Cuban American author Margarita Engle explores what it's like to be an outsider in her new novel, "Singing With Elephants." Her Cuban-born protagonist, 11-year-old Oriol, left the island nation to live in Santa Barbara, Calif. She's learning English. Her playmates are the animals at her parents' veterinary clinic. And as Engle explained to me, Oriol's life changes when she befriends the diplomat Gabriela Mistral, who happens to be the real-life winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Latin American author to do so.

MARGARITA ENGLE: I wanted to imagine how it would feel for a child to live near a Nobel Prize-winning poet and to see her out writing under the trees - she loved to write outdoors - and to wonder if she could write poetry, too, and if it would be a refuge for her, as it seemed to be for this Nobel Prize-winning poet.

MARTINEZ: Now, why did you choose to write this story, interspersing English and Spanish all throughout?

ENGLE: Well, I've done that all along with all of my verse novels. Ten years ago, publishers put the Spanish in italics, so people didn't really think of it as bilingual in the same way because the Spanish was kind of separated by the italics. But that's no longer the publishing tradition. Now they're just used as equal languages the way they are in our minds. If we know them both and we think them both, we don't stop to replace an English word with a Spanish word. They just run together freely. But it's, you know, the way bilingual people think.

MARTINEZ: I can't imagine that happening today because that really, really kind of puts it into your head that Spanish is the other, right? It's not from here. And it makes it crystal clear in the middle of italics.

ENGLE: I don't think that's why it was done. In fact...

MARTINEZ: It feels that way.

ENGLE: ...I kind of surveyed teachers before I made up my mind to change a few years ago, and they agreed that there are many words that could be confusing to a young reader who's just learning to read either language then. Yet that is still the new approach, is to hope that it's understood and to try to make it clear in the context. I don't want anybody to feel left out - someone who doesn't read Spanish. I would hope that it's clear enough in the context where I wouldn't lose the ability to communicate with children who only read English.

MARTINEZ: Yeah. And being left out - to me, it seems like that's very much what this book is about, how difficult it can be to fit in when English isn't your first language. So how do you overcome these inadequacies that - as a kid, you already feel inadequacies by the bunch, but this added in as an extra layer.

ENGLE: Well, this book is set in 1947. My mother came to the United States as an immigrant to marry my father in 1948, and she didn't know English. My father only knew English. My mother only knew Spanish. And they had met in Cuba. But they were artists, so they passed pictures back and forth to get to know each other. And, you know, it was love at first sight. They communicated without knowing the same language. But as my mother learned English, she had a very heavy accent and still does to this day, at the age of 91. And people made fun of her accent. So I kind of put some of that into the story.

MARTINEZ: So on that, can you read for us "Not Completely Bilingual Yet"?

ENGLE: Yes. (Reading) Maybe I should tell la poeta that I know she's famosa, and maybe we should switch back to Espanol instead of practicing English. My mouth feels like an acrobat, but I'm determined to learn - poetry, words, English - everything she can possibly teach me. So I just keep speaking, push through as if my tongue hasn't been tied into knots.

MARTINEZ: Margarita, I chose this poem because it really hit home for me. So when I was a kid, I had to learn English in the first grade. I was born in United States but never spoke English to anyone because we were a very closed-off family, and we only hung out with other Spanish speakers. So there was never a need until I had to be thrown into a first-grade classroom in the middle of Koreatown in Los Angeles. And I think sometimes, you know, the struggles that can come with trying to learn something on the fly and fit in at the same time are very, very tough to understand unless you're going through it yourself.

ENGLE: You know, there are children in every classroom learning a language, whether it's English or not. But everywhere in the world - you know, with refugees dispersed - people are learning new languages and adapting to new homes. So that's - you know, I really feel sympathy for what you're saying. I grew up with both languages in the home. But for me, poetry is also a way around that because poetry is musical, and music is a universal language. And I think that we can enjoy that music even when we don't understand every word.

MARTINEZ: How do you believe, yourself, that maybe the writing can be explored in one's identity, a sense of belonging? I mean, when Oriol first - when she learns about metaphor, she says, I am an echo of the place where I used to live. So how does transforming yourself kind of play into that?

ENGLE: As we mature and then go to school and encounter people from all different backgrounds, it's kind of a shock to - for anybody in any language - to seek a sense of belonging with people who aren't from your family, people you don't know. And yet there are these universal languages, like poetry, which is musical and is rooted in emotions. And I feel like that's a refuge.

For me, when I think of, where have I ever had a sense of belonging? - I have a sense of belonging on the page. That might sound strange, but my favorite line of poetry is by a Cuban poet Dulce Maria Loynaz. En mi verso soy libre. In my verse, I am free. And that's how I feel. In my verse, I am free. And that is where I find a sense of refuge. And I hope that young readers, not just the young children who would read "Singing With Elephants" that's written for middle grade, but also teenagers - they would find a sense of refuge in poetry and be able to write their own as well, have a place - a safe place for those emotions.

MARTINEZ: Margarita Engle - her new book is called "Singing With Elephants." Margarita, thank you very much.

ENGLE: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF SILVANA ESTRADA SONG, "TE GUARDO") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.