Jan's comments (member since Oct 08, 2008)

Jan's comments from the Latino and Latin American Literature group.

Yo soy Jan Steckel, de Oakland, California, en los Estados Unidos. I learned Spanish from our Mexican and Guatemalan and Salvadoreña nannies as I was growing up. I practiced it at La Clinica Familia de Venice, California, where I interpreted for my father when I was a teenager (he was one of the docs who helped found the free clinic). I also practiced it playing soccer -- it was always Latinos against North Americans, but the Latinos had to take the only girl as a handicap. I studied it as a Creative Writing major Harvard and reading Modern Languages (Siglo de Oro) at Oxford. I finally got fluent as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic. I spoke it with my patients and their families at a county hospital and at a large pediatric practice until I left the practice of medicine in 2001.

Now I live on the edge of Oakland's Latino ghetto, where you can walk for two miles along International Avenue without ever hearing a word of English. My favorite writers in Spanish are Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jorge Luis Borges, Federico Garcia Lorca, Eduardo Galeano and Juan Rulfo. My favorite writer in Spanglish is Junot Diaz. Mucho gusto, and can't wait to see what all of you are reading.

Jan Steckel
Author, The Underwater Hospital