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Se habla espanol: as a third-generation Mexican American raised in Texas, it's only natural that I speak better English than I do Spanish. Try telling that to a radio audience of one million Latinos.

Article Excerpt
I "found my voice," as they say, in 2003. Actually, it was an editor who found it and published my first book, a collection of stories set along the border in South Texas, but I was the one who traveled across the country for the different promotional events, including readings and media interviews. And although the book was published in English, a few of the interviews were in Spanish, including one I did on El Cucuy de la Tarde, the highest-rated radio program in L.A.

"El Cucuy de la Tarde" translates literally to "The Bogeyman of the Afternoon." Spanish-speaking moms everywhere are famous for telling their kids to go to sleep or el cucuy will get them. The man who assumed the moniker is a 51-year-old Honduran named Renan Almendarez Coello. El Cucuy, the radio personality, is a cross somewhere between Howard Stern and Oprah, if you can imagine a universe where such cross-fertilization would be possible. His shows are filled with crude jokes and a vast array of sound effects, most of them laugh tracks. He's also well known for giving advice to listeners and for supporting various humanitarian causes.

I wasn't fooling myself; I knew a few casual interviews were not the same as a nationally syndicated live radio show. My Spanish was acceptable but certainly not what you'd call polished. And if I'd learned anything speaking the language, it was that no one was more unforgiving of a slipup than another Spanish-speaking person, of which there would be an audience of one million listening to me talk about my book.

The expectation from many Latinos is that I should speak Spanish perfectly, while Anglos expect my English to be just...

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