When I Was Puerto Rican: A Memoir

Esmeralda Santiago

Feb 2006 · Sold by Da Capo Press

About this ebook

One of "The Best Memoirs of a Generation" (Oprah's Book Club): a young woman's journey from the mango groves and barrios of Puerto Rico to Brooklyn, and eventually on to Harvard

In a childhood full of tropical beauty and domestic strife, poverty and tenderness, Esmeralda Santiago learned the proper way to eat a guava, the sound of tree frogs, the taste of morcilla, and the formula for ushering a dead baby's soul to heaven. But when her mother, Mami, a force of nature, takes off to New York with her seven, soon to be eleven children, Esmeralda, the oldest, must learn new rules, a new language, and eventually a new identity. In the first of her three acclaimed memoirs, Esmeralda brilliantly recreates her tremendous journey from the idyllic landscape and tumultuous family life of her earliest years, to translating for her mother at the welfare office, and to high honors at Harvard.

Ratings and reviews

Went i first got this book in collegue i was upset about the title but after read the book remind me how much i miss my island and how puertorican culture gets lost in this country. For example we celebrate 3 reyes magos 3 kings but here now we celebrate christmas we bake cookies for santa and for the 3 kinds we put grass inside a shooes box and water under the bed.

I am a 3rd generation Puerto Rican. Never been there or experienced it's fullness. This book has given me a whole new insight that I look forward to expounding on with my children.

Esmeralda Santiago es mi escritora favorita, fue ella con este libro quienes me llevaron a la lectura. Tienen qué leer los demás lo vas a disfrutar tanto o más que este. La perfecta descripción de la lucha del Boricua.

About the author

Esmeralda Santiago is the author of two memoirs, When I Was Puerto Rican and The Turkish Lover, and the novel Conquistadora. A resident of Westchester County, New York, she is married to filmmaker Frank Cantor and is the mother of two adult children, jazz guitarists Lucas and Ila.