The Librarian of Congress welcomed a capacity audience in the Mumford Room on Sept. 26 to mark the Library's monthlong celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. He began on a somber note, calling for a moment of silence to honor people from some 70 countries—many Hispanic—who lost their lives in the tragedies of Sept.11.
On a more upbeat note, he said, "People of Hispanic origins have been in North America since the 1500s …. and here at the Library we have celebrated their contributions with a project available on Internet titled "The United States, Spain and the American Frontier: Historias Paralelas."
The Librarian introduced the Hispanic Heritage keynote speaker, Mario Bencastro, a writer, playwright and painter who arrived in the United States from El Salvador 23 years ago.
"Salvadorans have been arriving for over a hundred years, but in far greater numbers since the Soccer War of 1969 and the more recent civil wars and natural disasters in their native land," he said. "There are sizable Salvadoran communities in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Houston. However, the Washington area also has a vibrant Salvadoran population. At the Library we are fortunate to have a number of Salvadoran interns recruited yearly by the Hispanic Division, some of whom later become staff members. Every year the Library is pleased to welcome interns sponsored by the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities."
By way of introduction, the Librarian noted that, in 1988, Mr. Bencastro wrote and directed a play titled Crossroads, which was performed in Arlington, Va. Mr. Bencastro's three novels (originally published in Spanish and in subsequent English translations)—A Shot in the Cathedral, The Tree of Life and Odyssey to the North—were all critically acclaimed. Publisher's Weekly praised Odyssey as "a political novel which gives voice to a generation of Central American immigrants."
Mr. Bencastro thanked Dr. Billington for his words and then demonstrated a writer's trajectory from painting to literature by asking Ana Kurland, co-chair of the Library's Hispanic Heritage Committee, to show slides of some of his paintings. Mr. Bencastro began his lecture by stating that he no longer paints. His artistic expression is now through the pen.
"All immigrant communities have written their novels about their diaspora to the United States," said Mr. Bencastro. "I felt the urgent need to write one about the Salvadoran and Central American immigrants to the United States because there wasn't any and their story needed to be told." As in his previous novel, A Shot in the Cathedral, Mr. Bencastro concluded that "different circumstances of this diaspora could be represented by different literary genres." He said that he used the techniques of the theater to express the plight of Latino characters working in a hotel kitchen. Newspaper reporting techniques helped to illustrate difficult and often tragic border crossings in Arizona.
He used the device of "testimonies" to document the Adams Morgan riots of 1991. According to Mr. Bencastro, "Odyssey is the only novel so far that documents this piece of history that took place in the heart of the Latino barrio of Washington, D.C." He noted that on the whole Odyssey's main story is written in traditional narrative style and that "it describes the trek of immigrants from El Salvador, passing through Guatemala and Mexico and entering the United States."
Hispanic Division staffer Liz Canales and intern Cynthia Acosta, both of Salvadoran ancestry, read selections from Odyssey in English. The author then read a brief piece in Spanish because he wanted people to hear his words in his native language. In his closing remarks, Mr. Bencastro thanked the Library for its excellent collection on El Salvador and said he was a faithful user of the Hispanic Reading Room.
"The only thing that can keep us from making progress in the future are the doubts of today," concluded Mr. Bencastro. "As a Hispanic community, we need to convince ourselves that, without doubt, we are not only a very important part of this great world community that is the United States, but that we can enhance its future by contributing with our own great Hispanic heritage, which is entrenched in hard work, family, hope and freedom."
