When I Was Puerto Rican
A Memoir
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
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.
Customer Reviews
A great short read
Loved Esmeralda’s profound way in which she weaves the reader through her tumultuous childhood. The way she speaks of her emotions revived many familiar experiences that she skillfully narrated (that I was never able to put into words). The story was rather anticlimactic and felt rushed towards the end. Nevertheless, a great little read.