| Summary: | The task of researching the history of translation within the framework of
a national literature overlaps with the task of interrogating the uses of translation in
imagining a nation’s history. Although translation may be represented in this context
as a neutral and unproblematic search for equivalence between languages,
translational acts have been employed, either wittingly or unwittingly, to privilege a
past and inscribe it into the accepted national narrative. Such is the role of translation
in the history of Hispanic Filipino literature. In this article I argue that the endeavour
of writing a translation history using Hispanic Filipino texts is called upon to examine
translation in history, of history and as history, that is, how translation operates as a
material, method and mode of commemoration. Translation is considered here as a
fundamental component in the production and mediation of a text. It fulfils a
gatekeeping function through which historical information is repatriated into the
national consciousness.
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