When I Was Puerto Rican
When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago is definitely one of my most favorite memoirs. The story is about the young girl Esmeralda or Negi growing up in Mancùn; Puerto Rico with both her Parents. Threw out the story, she tells us how she lived in a small tin house in Mancùn, how her parents argue, but end up always being happy again and having more and more kids. She tells us how the mother put her in charge, and told her that she is ¨casì señorita¨ and that she has to cook, clean, and watch out for the kids. She shows us how her Papi works from Dusk to Dawn trying to get money home to feed the kids. She tells us how her Mami get’s worried when Papi does not come home from school because she is afraid he is sleeping with other women. She tells us how she starts school in Macùn, but has to switch schools all the time because Mami keeps moving to get away from Papi. She tells us how her mother goes to New York to get her brother Reymond’s foot fixed, and how the Mami ends up leaving Papi, and taking the seven kids to New York with her, to start a new Life with Negi’s grandma Tata.
The book starts out, when Negi and her two sisters Delsa and Norma and her father and her mother move to the tin house in Macùn, where Negi immediately burns her finger on the sunny side of the tin house. ¨That’ll teach you,¨ her mom tells her. ¨Never touch a wall on the sunny side.¨ (page 7). She goes on to tell us how her mother is scared of scorpions and snakes, but the father is ripping up floor boards, and slithery snake trails become visible underneath the wood. She tells us how her mother wants her to become old quick, and become a señorita, but how she herself want’s to stay young, and keep on running around outside in the oregano bushes and the Mango tree. Negi was taught the basic rules of conduct outside the home early on in her childhood. These are called "Dignidad" or manners, "Buenos Modales". Negi and her sisters try their best to live her life by these rules, and they do a pretty good job. It is Negi’s responsibility to look after her two sisters, while her father works and her mother does the house work.
Arroz con Pollo y frijoles is a typical dish served in the Satiagos house. But so is pig feet and Chicken broth. Mami spends all her time making this kid of food or cleaning the house or washing the clothes while Papi goes out to work in the city. Negi and her sisters usually play around the house together. When they come home hungry, there is usually not that much to eat. Starving is not the word Negi uses to describe it though. She says that they were always well fed.
At night, Negi and her to sisters sleep in hammocks, that are separated from the parents bed with a curtain. The sound of tree frogs chirping outside, the wind in the trees, the low voices and murmurs in the room next door, and the even squeaks of the parents bed (which Negi later finds out is her parents making love to each other) lulls her and her sister to sleep.
When Negi’s baby brother Hector ¨comes to take her lap¨, Mami and Papi begin to argue more frequently, because Mami thinks that her dear beloved Pablo is seeing other women behind her back when he does not come home from work. Negi also finds out, that she has an older sister from her fathers side. She is not allowed to talk about her or even mention her name thought, because Mami hates Margie’s mother.
Negi tells us how she starts school in the middle of hurricane season and how she walks the seemingly endless trek to the small building. But soon after Mami decides to move them all to the publico. She goes back to school there, but she does not like it, because everyone calls her a Jibara. Even though Negi had wanted to be a Jibera all her Life, it bothers her here, cause the kids use it as a insult.
When Christmas neared, Negi walks to school, listening to the music playing on the streets. Even though Papi does not live with them, he comes over and puts colorful lights up while Mami spends days in the kitchen.
Still in the city, Mami has another Baby named Alicia. After she was born, Papi came around more often, to play with the kids, and to read the comic out loud.
Soon Negi and her family moved back to Macùn. This way Negi get’s to spend more time with her best friend Juanita that lives a little farther up the hill. With her, they listen to Juanita’s grandfather tell stories and legends about the area, while cleaning his machete. The girls loved those days that they would sit out on the stairs, listening to the tales the old man had to tell. But when Juanita’s grandpa dies, something changes inside Negi. Negi realizes that she has never lost someone she loved. She gets really interested in what happens to the soul, and what happens after you die. Then she has a big talk with her dad about death, and how they are not really religious.
Edna is born shortly after Juanita’s Grandpa dies, and the first May rain falls. All the kids including Edna are sent out underneath the rain, so it can give them luck.
The americans coming to Macùn was always a threat to the Santiago family. Because as soon as they would, a hotel would be build in Macùn and they would be forced to live somewhere else. But still, the gringos are a big help. The gringos come, and give the mothers a talk about how to feed their kids, and how to treat them right, and from now on, the school that Negi goes to, will serve breakfast to all the kids. Also, the kids start to become vaccinated against polio by the new school nurse that the gringos sent.
Once in a while, Negis grandma Tata sends cloths and cards to the family. Negi usually answers, by writing her something, or drawing her something, or sending a school composition and a tank you note back. But when Negi makes a mistake by not writing a introduction to her letter, and her mom slaps and hits her, she doesn't want to continue. And all that does, is get another slap from her Mami.
During the novel, Negi goes to visit her abuela once. Mami get’s her ready and tells her that she will be going to abuela’s with her Papi. But when they get there, Negi becomes really sad, because her dad leaves, and Negi and her abuela both know, that he is leaving to see another woman. Once when she feels like crying because of her dad, but does not dare to tell abuela why, she slams her hand in-between the door, so she will at least have a reason to cry. But her stay with her abuela is not all that bad. She learns how embroider, and she makes a handkerchief for her Mami. Abuala also wants Negi to go to church, and Negi has to go, and sit there in quietly.
Abuelo was a quiet man, that sold oranges for 50¢. He is a very quiet man, and barley talks. After work, he comes home with his shopping cart, and peels an orange for Negi, and then goes back to his own separate room for the rest of the night.
The day that Papi is supposed to come pick Negi up, he does not come, and Negi becomes sad. ABout a week later, Mami finally comes to get her, telling them the great news: Electricity has come to Moncùn, and she has gotten a new baby named Raymond. and she has a long talk with Abuela while Negi is showering, and Mami tells Abuela how unhappy she is.
Soon after Negi returned, a hurricane is scheduled to hit Moncùn, and they all hid away in the only brick hose in the little slum. While they were hiding away, the mothers cooked, tended the Babies, and Mami told about the new job she got in the factory. The men played cards, and talk between one another.
After the hurricane is over, a new kitchen and outhouse must be build.
Doña Lola watches the kids, while Mami is gone, but even when Mami is there, she hangs around the house a lot. Her son that is one year older then Negi, plays outside with her outside allot. So when he comes over to get some food, and then runs outside with Negi, her mother doesn't think that anything is abnormal. Tato and Negi run behind the oregano bushes, and they agree that Tato ¨goes first¨ so the boy pulls down his pants, and they begin ¨showing their private parts to each other¨
Something that really bothers Negi threw-out the book is her older cousin Jenny. Jenny’s family in richer than Negi’s family. Jenny gets a bike during the story, and offers a ride to every kid in the slum. When Reymond got on though, Negi got mad, because she was jealous of Jenny and Reymond, so she walked away. But when Reymond screamed Negi returned to the bike, to find her brother with his foot twisted and all bloody. This causes Mami to have to quit her job to tend Reymond, which brings less money into the house.
Soon later, the family moves to the city again, where baby sister Alicia is born. They move to a place called El Mangle. Negi hates it. She says that the sewage river that flows by, gives her the creeps, and that Doña Andrea gives her the creeps just as much as the sewer.
One of my favorite parts of the book plays in El Mangel. It is a real part. It is a small part of her Life, but important to her. It’s the time where she has to use the bathroom, but the hole she is supposed to pee in is to big, and the wind coming from the bottom scares her. When her mother and Doña Andrea laugh at her, she becomes mad, and rebells against her mother by punching her in the stomach. When Mami get’s mad though, and tells her to use the bathroom, she refuses too, and pees onto the floor. I liked this part, because it was real, and it was true.
The school she goes to in El Mangle is really nice, but Negi hates the teacher, and the teacher hates her.
Also while living in El Mangle, Negi has to close a dead baby’s eyes. This scares her, and even after having closed the eyes, she feels like death has touched her.
When Papi finally finds the family living like that, he moved them into another house. The new house is located above a bar. The noise from the bar downstairs drifts up, giving the Santiago family a hard time to sleep. The apartment is crowded with two adults and seven kids, but they manage.
When her mother goes to New York for the firs time because of Reymond’s foot, Negi lives with her two cousins Gladys and Angelina. She has to get up early every morning to help peel potatoes for her uncle with Gladys while Angie sleeps in, which she thinks is unfair.
When Mami comes back, Negi get’s a hug, a handbag from new York and the news that they have moved from her mother.
Negi starts piano lessons with her school principal, who she says was being inappropriate by looking at her breasts, and touching her when she was not supposed to, so Negi’s mom puts an end to all of that.
Soon later, Mami leaves for New York again with Reymond, and Negi goes to stay with her cousins again. When Mami comes back, she is all made up, and wears fancy clothes, and the guys whistle after her, which Negi does not like at all. Negi also finds out that Papi has moved, so they go home to live on a pretty little finca where Negi gets her own room.
Negi falls in love for the first time while living on that finca when a boy named Johannes Vélez notices her, but she always gets nervous around him, and ends up falling in a river when he comes over. That puts an end to their relationship.
A week before her thirteenth birthday, she has a talk with her father about becoming a tenrnayer. During this talk, Negi finds out that she is being ¨forced¨ to move to New York but without her father, and that only Mami, Delsa, Reymond and her would be going , and that the other kids would be sent later as soon as enough money was at hand.
They move to New York, where Negi meets her Tata for the first time. They settle in a ¨fancy¨ apartment. But not for long. As soon as the siblings arrive, they move to a big apartment with Tata.
Negi started school. To her surprise though, she was put in the class for retarded people though, because she does not speak english well enough.
While living in Brooklyn, Negi sees snow for the first time. Mami falls in love with next door neighbor Francisco, who she ends up moving in with. (Yes. Negi moves again.). And after finding out that Francisco was diagnosed with cancer, the Santiago family moves again to go live with Tata again. Francisco was in and out of the hospital, and somewhere in between, he managed to get Mami pregnant again, and she gave birth to her eight child Franky. Soon after he was born though, Francisco died, and Mami went into a year long depression.
Negi tries to keep up with school as good possible, and bring home good grades. When her principal asks her in Junior Hight what she would like to be, she does not know though. So she gets called back a few days later, and she answers that she would like to be an actress after having seen a fashion show. The principal thinks she’s joking at first, but then gets her an audition at Preforming arts. She goes to the audition, and feels like she failed, but threw the epilogue, we find out that she made it to the school, and after graduating there made it to Harvard. We also find out, that she had 11 siblings in the end of the story.
On page 261, the principal says: ¨it’s not lady like.¨ This is what I think is what Esmeralda learned during her time growing up. If you grow up in a slum, running around barefoot, and getting dirty, you still will have to grow up one day, and become a señorita.
I think Santiago has deeper meaning to a bunch of her things in her book. For example:
Women:
Woman in Puerto Rican seem to be here for children, marriage (which Mami never got) and setting food on the table. i think that the woman in Negi’s life represent the opposite of what she wants to be.
Sexuality (Coming of Age):
Negi realizes how powerful her body can be, when she can turn the truck driver on, or when she goes behind the oregano bushes with Tato, or when her grandmas brother harasses her. To her it proves, that she can be someone. This was showed when the driver looked up and smiled at her.
Education (Coming of Age):
Negi works up to become who she is in the end of the book. She tries to get her and her family out of the life they used to live. She tries to work on her grades to save the family. (This is the part that really reminded me of the book Girl in Translation. Both books are about girls coming from poor backgrounds, trying to change their family situations.) Negi did not care what other people said about her in school. All she cared about was to do the right thing, and to save herself, and to be ¨different¨ from the people that remained in Mancùn. To Negi Education is like a life saver.
United States:
The United States is Esmeralda way out, and her ¨bright future¨. It is where her life will become better, and more grand. And for Mami, the united states is where she can run away from Papi.
Parents Relationship:
Her parents relationship, represents how you try ti fix other peoples problems, but you will have to find out sooner or later, that it’s impossible, and that you can only fix your own problems.
Economical Status:
Negi’s social status, is the barrier, blocking her from becoming the Harvard graduate earlier. Her social status was like a barrier to her, before she realized that she could think beyond it, and become someone even when you are poor.
This leads to my next topic…What did Esmeralda Santiago want to teach the reader in her memoir. Well mainly, I think that she is trying to show how Life can be hard when your poor, but that you have to think beyond your towns barriers. You have to set your goals high, and you can become someone. It does not matter how poor you are, or how hard your Life must be. You must try to focus on the moments that define your life.
I also think that she was trying to teach us, that not everything in Life works out, but that we must try to forget those things, and move on.
Like I already said, my favorite part was where she uses the bathroom in El Mangle. But there are many good quotes and lines in the book. Some of my favorite are. “For me, the person I was becoming when we left was erased, and another one was created.” and “What doesn't kill you, makes you fat.” and “Tell me who you walk with, and I'll tell you who you are.” I really like these lines, because they represent Negi and her family.
The title of the book suggests that the author no longer considered herself Puerto Rican and had severed her ties with a place she would once call home.
I think what the Author learned while writing this memoir, is that you have to try to support your family as well as possible, just like her Mami did in the end. She probably realized that having a big family is not always easy, and the bigger your family becomes, the harder it get’s to care for it, and the oldest one must also care for the family, which in this case was Negi. Esmeralda realized, that being the oldest, and having responsibility, can also be good. You can take the responsibility or leave it. But if you take it, it makes you a better person, and prepares you for life.
This was one of the best books I have ever read. It is such a heartwarming story, that I will remember forever, and I look forward to reading more of her books.
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