When I Was Puerto Rican

The memoir When I Was Puerto Rican recounts author Esmeralda Santiago’s early years. It is the first of her three memoirs chronicling her childhood in Puerto Rico to her eventual residence in the United States. It is a coming of age story, but mines richer material than that. Questions of identity—national identity, hereditary identity, familial identity, female identity, spiritual identity, and semantic labels—underpin the stories Santiago tells.

The book begins in Puerto Rico, when Esmeralda is six years old. Esmeralda introduces the reader to her parents and her perpetually growing list of siblings—by the end of the book she is one of 11 children. Her parents, whom she refers to as Mami and Papi, have a rocky relationship. There are hints that Papi has been unfaithful and he does not spend as much time at home as his children would like. The first third of the book shows Esmeralda’s growing awareness that the problems in her parents’ relationship have implications for anyone who chooses to marry. But it is Mami’s situation that prompts her to ask herself the biggest questions about what she, and women, owe themselves.

As the book progresses, Esmeralda grapples with typical childhood issues: bullying, puberty, mortality, and romance. The settings—Esmeralda often lives in poverty—enrich these issues with their own complicated set of questions.

In the second half of the book, Esmeralda moves to New York. Her immigration experience will feel relevant to readers who have paid attention to the recent immigration discussions in America. But is her progression into sexual awareness and the sense of being “Other”, at least temporarily, that will be familiar to most readers. When Esmeralda arrives in New York it is hard to find a group to fit into. She is astonished to learn that children who were born in America, but born of Puerto Rican parents, do not mix with native Puerto Ricans like Esmeralda.

Before her time in New York, Esmeralda has put little thought into her future beyond simply wanting to be in another place, or at times, in another family. By the end of the book she is graduating from high school and is forced to confront two of the book’s major questions: “What do I want to do with my life?” and “Have I learned enough to do it?” Education is a major theme in When I Was Puerto Rican, particularly the consequences of having too little education or inadequate teachers.

When I Was Puerto Rican is also a major examination of the dynamics between men and women, as seen through a child’s eyes. In the beginning of the book, Esmeralda has only the gossip of the women around her to inform her opinions of men. Men are portrayed—not unfairly, in many cases—as being irredeemably driven by lust and novelty, abandoning their wives and children the second someone attractive turns their head. Sadly, but predictably, by the time she graduates from high school, Esmeralda has stories of her own when it comes to inappropriate men and their sexual aggressiveness.

Duty also factors heavily into the book. When Papi leaves his family, Mami has to take care of them all. When Mami has to get a job, the burden falls to Esmeralda. She is both resentful of the responsibility foisted upon her, and tangentially proud that she is up to the challenge. There are examinations of duty to one’s family, to one’s wife, to one’s country, to one’s friends, and more. In Esmeralda’s world, people owe each other more than they usually give.

Finally, there is guilt. When I Was Puerto Rican is largely a story about a girl coming to accept that she is not to blame for all the challenges in her life. Early on, she is bitten by termites and believes it is because she disobeyed her mother. This theme plays out repeatedly. Esmeralda is split in two psychically, as she blames herself for events that she could not possibly have caused, and yet, this egocentrism never gives her an inflated view of her own good qualities.

Because the book ends with Esmeralda heading off to college—except for a brief prologue when the reader learns that became a graduate student at Harvard—the arguments therein are presented through the eyes of a child. This results in a naïve point of view. However, the author handles it masterfully. The adult reader can study this story of a child’s wide-eyed disappointments and triumphs without ever feeling that the material has been diminished because of the age it portrays.