Acknowledgments

Without the help, support, and knowledge of various students, friends, and colleagues in different stages of translating An Inquiry into Choteo, this project would not have evolved into what it is. I greatly appreciate the willingness of my former undergraduates—Christina Bauman, Morgan Handy, Kevin Johnston, Sonja Nisku, and Jacqueline Slemp—to have accepted the somewhat irrational challenge of attempting to work as a group to translate this highly challenging essay. Ariana Hernandez-Reguant is partially responsible for that dare, and I thank her. After a semester, we achieved a very rough draft over which, for the past two and a half years, I have labored. Only, before the brilliant and meticulous comments and suggestions of Kristin Dysktra do I realize the full scope of this intellectual striptease. My consultations with Esther Allen from the start of the project similarly remind me how fortunate I am to be able to rely on such expertise. Yael Prizant also provided thought-provoking editorial work. My follies are my own. Lena Burgos-La Fuente, Enrique del Risco, Arturo López-Levy, Marilú Menéndez, María Pérez, Juan Carlos Quintero-Herencia, and Toba Leah Singer debated the meaning of the term “parejería” with me and helped me to carefully plot out its evolution in time and place. When my students and I had one of the most obscure questions, I approached the encyclopedic Víctor Fowler Calzada, who directed us to Ana Cairo Ballester; she solved our puzzle in no time. Odette Casamayor Cisneros, Ana Dopico, Rachel Price, Rafael Rojas, Vicky Unruh, Alexandra Vazquez, and Esther Whitfield all dedicated their precious time to reading my translation and/or introduction and led me to dig deeper into various topics. In addition, I would like to thank Susana Aho, María Antonia Cabrera Arús, Rosa Helena Chinchilla, Julia Cuervo Hewitt, Matthew Corey, Augusto Espiritu, Isabel Garayta, Dara Goldman, Miguel Gomes, Andrew Hurley, Grettel Jiménez-Singer, Ellen Kanner Loss, Barbara Loss, Daniel Loss, Marilyn Miller, Amanda Moreno, Rolando Prats, Andrew N. Rubin, Sandra Ruiz, César Salgado, Miguel Sirgado, and Armando Suárez Cobián for helping me to sort out one detail or another, and in some cases, really, one detail after another. At a few key moments, I enormously appreciated the ability to rely on the first-rate translations of fragments of this essay, carried out by Gustavo Pérez Firmat. His previous scholarly reckoning with Mañach has helped me better understand this essay. A special thank you to Radamés Molina, a translator himself who has had infinite patience to dialogue with me continually down to the nitty-gritty of criollo phrases, and so much more.