Cleveland, New York and Mexico City · 1946–1996
The first Spanish-speaking members heard AA in English. They translated its book themselves, started groups of their own, and in time got a magazine in their own language.
“‘Aquí no se habla español.’ That seemed to be the word the first Spanish-speaking members got from A.A.”
AA’s meetings were held in English, and so was every piece of its literature. As AA’s office told it in 1982, Ricardo P., “Dick,” reported to be the first Spanish-speaking member, came into Cleveland’s Orchard Grove Group in 1940. He had trouble reaching the fellow Mexicans he felt needed the program, so he encouraged his wife to translate parts of the Big Book. By 1946 she had translated all of it, and he took it to Bill W. in New York. A note from Bill to Ricardo, dated July 1946, thanks him “for his arduous labors of translation — that our Spanish-speaking brothers throughout the world may be led out of darkness into light.”
In New York, at about the same time, three Spanish speakers, Maria, David and Frank, started the city’s first Spanish-speaking group, Grupo Hispano. It began meeting on a park bench across from where Lincoln Center stands now, and soon moved to a church on West 156th Street. Frank made a translation of his own. AA’s history of the Big Book credits one to Frank M. of the Hispano Group, and Bill wrote that he worked days as an interpreter for an importer, and at night “labored over his love, the book.” Copies went to Mexico, Puerto Rico and New York, and by April 1955 AA’s own publishing company had reprinted a Spanish Big Book, at $3.20 a copy.
Mexico City had an English-speaking group by 1946. A visitor from New York found it the next spring meeting at the YMCA on Tuesday nights, with “at least half of the discussion” in English, at least when a visitor came, and its first Mexican member, Fernando I., a lawyer. In 1953 Joaquin B. formed a group in Mexico, and with his wife, Irma, and Carlos C. translated the Big Book into Spanish. In the 1960s an article in the Spanish edition of the Reader’s Digest brought many requests for help. Mexico had 38 groups by 1964 and 260 by 1969.
In the States, Spanish-speaking groups grew up where Spanish speakers lived in numbers. As early as 1946 the East Los Angeles group reported that it was reaching out to the area’s “large Mexican population, about 300,000.” Puerto Rico had twelve groups by 1956, and a monthly bulletin of its own, Sobriedad. New York’s intergroup listed two Spanish groups in 1965 and 33 in 1982. That year AA’s office counted about 400 Spanish-speaking groups in the U.S. and Canada, with Spanish intergroups, offices or service committees in cities including New York, Chicago, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Antonio. From the early 1970s they held a national convention every year.
In 1986 AA World Services chose one existing translation, checked against the English and sent to the Spanish-speaking countries for comment, and made it its only Spanish Big Book. The 1990 edition added twelve stories by Spanish-speaking members, the first Spanish Big Book anywhere with stories of its own. In 1995 the General Service Conference approved a five-year trial of a Spanish-language Grapevine. It was named La Viña, the vineyard, and in June 1996 the first 7,000 copies came off the press.
It’s 1946, in Cleveland. Ricardo P., a Mexican, has been sober in AA for six years, in meetings held in English. He wants to reach his own people, but there’s nothing in Spanish to give them. So his wife has translated the whole Big Book, and Ricardo carries the manuscript to Bill W. in New York.
About the same time, in Manhattan, three Spanish speakers start meeting on a park bench. They call themselves Grupo Hispano.
It went that way for years: members translating the book themselves and starting groups of their own. By 1982 there were about 400 Spanish-speaking groups in the U.S. and Canada, and in 1996 they got a magazine of their own, La Viña.
Compare the accounts
Several members put the Big Book into Spanish before AA’s office published one. Here is whom each account credits, in the order it was set down.
Members are named as the sources name them. Bob P.’s history was written for AA’s office in 1985 and never published; it is quoted from a transcription.
Ricardo P., Cleveland
“In testimony and deep gratitude for his arduous labors of translation…”
As AA’s archives keep it, the note thanks Ricardo. It doesn’t name his wife.
Bill W. to Ricardo P., July 1946, as given in A Brief History of the Big Book.
Frank M., New York
“Some ten years ago, Frank M. translated the A.A. book into Spanish.”
From Bill’s talk at St. Louis in 1955, edited for the book, which puts the work in the mid-1940s. He names no other translator, and called Frank’s “the foundation cornerstone for A.A. in Spanish-speaking countries.”
Bill W., “Service: The Third Legacy,” AA Comes of Age.
Ricardo’s wife, by 1946
“By 1946, she had translated the entire book…”
It has Frank, one of Grupo Hispano’s founders, make a translation too.
Box 4-5-9, Holiday 1982.
Joaquin B., Mexico
“He and his wife, Irma, with the help of Carlos C., translated the Big Book into Spanish.”
Its account of Mexico credits this translation, made after Joaquin formed a group in 1953.
Bob P., A.A. World History, chapter 8.
Ricardo, with his wife’s help
“Ricardo started translating the Big Book into Spanish, purportedly with much help from Helen.”
Helen, his wife, knew Spanish and worked with the Mexican consulate. In this telling, Dr. Bob asked the New York office in 1941 to make it an official translation.
Bob M., “Biography of Ricardo (Dick) P.,” Cleveland District Office.
No one knows
“It is not known exactly who produced the very first Spanish translation…”
It calls the story of Ricardo’s wife “one historical narrative passed down,” and says Frank M.’s translation was “probably done in the very early 1950s.”
A Brief History of the Big Book (F-166).
Before the office had one
No one can now say for sure who made the first Spanish Big Book. Every account agrees on this much: members made it themselves, years before AA’s office published one.
For a closer look
Where the first Spanish-speaking groups in the States met; when the first national convention was held; and how La Viña began.
AA’s office has named the first Spanish-speaking group in New York City, Grupo Hispano, but not a first for the whole country. Ricardo, in Cleveland, had come into an English-speaking group.
In November 1946 the Grapevine’s news page reported that the East Los Angeles group, though small, was reaching many people “of Spanish-American ancestry,” in an area with “a large Mexican population, about 300,000.” Its correspondent added that “class groups as such do not seem to thrive.”
By November 1956 AA’s office had word of twelve groups, two “24-Hour Clubs” and one loner in Puerto Rico, and of Sobriedad, a monthly bulletin first published there the month before.
The history written for AA’s office in 1985 says Spanish-speaking members held their first “Convention Nacional A.A. de Habla Hispana” in 1972, and every year since, moving from city to city, for about 1,000 people. It doesn’t say where the first was held.
AA’s newsletters count differently. In 1982 a member brought the office the proceedings of the tenth national convention, held in Denver that September, and the twelfth met in San Francisco in 1984. Counted back a year at a time, the first was in 1973.
Spanish-speaking members had long wanted to read and write for the Grapevine in their own language. In 1991 the General Service Conference asked it to print at least one article in Spanish every month, and in 1995 it approved a five-year trial of a Spanish edition.
A pilot issue, all Grapevine stories in translation, went to the International Convention in San Diego that summer, with a form asking who would subscribe. To echo the Grapevine, it was named La Viña, the vineyard. Its first editor, Jaime M., was a Colombian writer and translator.
The first issue came off the press in June 1996, 7,000 copies, as the magazine’s 25th-anniversary account tells it; an update in the Grapevine in 2000 counted its issues “since July of 1996.” It came out every two months. In 2001 the Conference voted to keep it, with the General Service Board’s support.