Entries in the works-cited list should be in the language of the paper as a whole. If your paper is in English, these labels should be in English. If your paper is in Spanish, follow the guidance in chapter 4 of the Manual MLA, the new Spanish adaptation of the MLA Handbook, to create the entry in Spanish, regardless of the language of the work documented.
Sometimes the Spanish and English versions of an entry are identical. For example, an entry for a book with no additional information beyond the author, title, publisher, and year, such as the example below, looks the same in English or Spanish.
Mariátegui, José Carlos. Siete ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana. Amauta, 1965.
But many entries will have components that differ from one language to another. Entries in English and Spanish for the Manual MLA, for example, will look like this:
Manual MLA. Translated and adapted by Conxita Domènech and Andrés Lema-Hincapié, Modern Language Association of America, 2025.
Manual MLA. Traducción y adaptación de Conxita Domènech y Andrés Lema-Hincapié, Modern Language Association of America, 2025.
The title and publisher name are untranslated, but the phrase specifying the role of the contributors, as well as the conjunction between the contributors’ names, appears in the language of the entry, regardless of the language of the work. (For guidance on the styling of contributor labels in Spanish, see Manual 4.44.) Other frequently occurring components that differ according to the language of the entry include descriptions used in place of titles (4.28), dates (4.76–4.82), punctuation with quotation marks (2.40), abbreviations for journal issue numbers (4.53), and the styling of ordinals to specify an edition (4.50).
Work Cited
Manual MLA. Translated and adapted by Conxita Domènech and Andrés Lema-Hincapié, Modern Language Association of America, 2025.