How does the author use language in the novel, What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez?

The language of What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez tends to informal and accessible. Throughout the narrative, Jiménez includes Spanish words and phrases to authenticate the Ramirez’s Puerto Rican heritage. When speaking with Irene and her daughters, Dolores interjects her English sentences with Spanish. By way of example, she utilizes phrases like “Estás en la casa?” and “Déjalo eso”, and “Yo camioron?” (176, 202). By including the Spanish diction within the text, which is predominantly written in English, Jiménez authenticates Dolores’ experience living in New York and Puerto Rico throughout her life. Conversely, Nina’s internal thoughts and dialogue with other characters is devoid of Spanish phrases because she never learned the language. Jessica teases her for “acting like a stuck-up white girl who [cannot] even speak good Spanish, not even the basic shit” (191). While the sisters were raised by the same parents, within a Puerto Rican immigrant household, they interact with language differently. Jessica feels that using Spanish connects her to her heritage while Nina feels frustrated that people expect her to speak Spanish because she is Latino.

Additionally, Jiménez utilizes diction to authenticate Ruthy’s voice during the chapters told through her first-person point of view. While the other characters have grown and matured since Ruthy disappeared, Ruthy’s juvenile vocabulary and slang demonstrates that her voice is confined to her childhood self, she is not an adult in the narrative present. By way of example, Ruthy utilizes words such as “ugh”, “like”, and “literally” (44). Through this language, the author demonstrates Ruthy’s innocence while deconstructing the other characters’ hypothesis that she orchestrated her own disappearance. If Jiménez had omitted these words from Ruthy’s narrative passages, the language would have suggested that she is still alive, and she is the reality TV show contestant Ruby.