The Yiddish Book Center's

Wexler Oral History Project

A growing collection of in-depth interviews with people of all ages and backgrounds, whose stories about the legacy and changing nature of Yiddish language and culture offer a rich and complex chronicle of Jewish identity.

Four Languages Coexisting in Jewish Mexican Life

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Ilan Stavans, academic and writer, recalls the the linguistic divisions of his childhood: Spanish spoken here, Yiddish there, and never the twain shall meet. Then Hebrew and English began to creep into the mix as well.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Ilan Stavans.

This excerpt is in English.

Ilan Stavans was born in Mexico City, Mexico in 1961.

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This interview is part of the Yiddish in the Academy: scholars, language instructors, and students series.

Other video highlights from this oral history

"A Cultural Jew with Very Strong Faith Defined by Ambivalence": Ilan Stavans on His Jewish Identity

3 min 20 sec

"I Think I Am Here in Order to Think": Ilan Stavans on Jewishness, Mexican-ness, and the Future

6 min 28 sec

"I Want to Provoke Thought": Ilan Stavans on Writing

4 min 57 sec

"Daring" to Find Out Who You Are: Ilan Stavans on Writing and Jewish Identity

1 min 57 sec

Ilan Stavans, a Mexican-Born Descendent of Shtetl-Dwellers

3 min 41 sec

Mole Latkes: A Hybrid Eastern European-Mexican Jewish Culture

3 min 31 sec

The Jewish Geography of Mexico City

4 min 21 sec

My Father, "Rebel" Actor of the Mexican Jewish Community

1 min 46 sec

Ilan Stavans Describes his Yiddish Education in Mexico City

5 min 9 sec

Yiddish to Relate to the Past: Ilan Stavans on Languages as Glasses that Change One's World View

2 min 1 sec

"A State of Fear": Economic Collapse and Anti-Semitism in Mexico in the 1980s

6 min 49 sec

El Iluminado: The Story of Luis de Carabajal

4 min 50 sec

The Jewish Grandparents' Kiss in the Square of a Spanish Inquisition Burning

3 min 33 sec

Golemito, the Nahuatl Golem

3 min 11 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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