When I Was Puerto Rican

In When I Was Puerto Rican, the words people use to describe others and themselves are crucial to understanding their identities. When someone labels another person, that person essentially loses the ability to make their own first impressions. For instance, early in the book, Esmeralda wants to be a jibara—the simple country folk— more than anything. However, when she moves to a bigger city, her style of speech marks her as a jibara, and her mocking classmates use this against her.

Women are divided into putas, long-suffering mothers and wives, or jamonas, women who are too old (and, it is implied, too ugly,) to marry. If these are the only categories in which Esmeralda is able to think about females, how is she to choose what kind of woman she wants to be? What if there is no category for her?

Men are often called sinverguenzas, or, “without shame.” These are generally the men who cheat on their wives or who abandon their families. Again, sometimes the stereotype is deserved, but what if one of these men has a legitimate desire to change? His efforts will not be noticed by people who have already decided that he is a sinverguenza—they will think they already know everything they need to know about him. 

At times, Esmeralda shares her mother’s impatience and disapproval of her father. Papi is a well-meaning father when he is present but is absent more than anyone would like. His implied infidelities put a strain on Mami, but as Esmeralda grows, she begins to see how unfair he is. She also experiences this when her mother goes to work and she has to take charge of her siblings. Not only that, society itself judges Mami as if she were abandoning her children, not just working hard to make ends meet.

The theme is more heavily noticed in Papi’s story arc, however. There is no way around it: he is a man who decides to spend less time than he could with his wife and children in favor of pursuing his own pleasures. It is worth noting that Papi’s actions never seem to make him truly happy. He does what he wants, but is always fighting with Mami, is withdrawn and distant, and there is no sign that he ever feels good about himself. For her part, Esmeralda understands quickly that if she does not want the obligations of family, she will not get married and have children. The best way to ensure that your husband never neglects you is not to have a husband.

Near the end of the book, Esmeralda finally begins to feel a pride and gratitude towards her mother. While they are still at odds occasionally, Esmeralda has realized that her mother has spent her life playing dual roles: both mother and father. She has been required to nurture and provide, to earn and to work, and to endure the scorn of the community and Papi’s fecklessness.

One of the reasons the Santiagos are always able to continue making progress is that their family is so large and generous. The web of cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents who are always willing to take them in are a good example of the upsides of familial duty. 

Esmeralda’s development as a female takes place in her fantasies of romance, the gradual increase of attention from boys, her observation of her mother, and her conversations with various other women. The salient question regarding womanhood in When I Was Puerto Rican is, “What is a woman’s duty?”

Obviously, it depends on who is asking the question and what their aspirations are. Esmeralda believes her mother’s duty is to raise her children. Society agrees with her, chastising Mami when she goes to work in order to have enough money to provide for them all. Papi apparently believes that it is Mami’s job to take him back whenever he reappears and to forgive all of his mistakes. For her part, there is evidence—in the form of seven children—that Mami sees her primary role as bearing children.

This theme ties into another, the theme of education. A real education tends to allow people to ask more questions about the world, and therefore, about their own lives. If someone says they are satisfied with what they have, but they are incapable of asking themselves if there might be ways to improve their lives, the reader can be forgiven for asking if that person knows what they actually want. This is not a value judgment, but a person who is taught to aspire for more than family life—or that there are options beyond family life—is more likely to pursue their own passions and curiosities. 

In When I Was Puerto Rican, being a woman seems to come with an unfair responsibility over the actions of men. The book’s female characters repeatedly discuss men who cannot, or will not, control themselves around women. When Esmeralda is at her window and the man starts masturbating after waving to her, she does not blame him, she assumes that she made it happen. In fact, she does not have a framework in which she can assume that it is not her fault. 

When the family moves to New York, Esmeralda encounters American children born to Puerto Rican parents. It is not that she expects them to embrace her unconditionally simply because they have a shared heritage, but she is surprised to see that many of them simply do not want to mix with the Puerto Rican-born children.

Anyone who immigrates arrives in their new country with a set of ideas about how it is going to be. Indeed, this is why people usually immigrate: they believe they are going somewhere better. 

But assimilation always comes with unexpected challenges. However, one challenge that Esmeralda could not have anticipated is that people who share much of her background would avoid her simply because she was from another place. While it is not outright xenophobia, the experience of being treated as “Other” in When I Was Puerto Rican is jarring for Esmeralda. 

It is never entirely clear what Esmeralda thinks of religion. In fairness, When I Was Puerto Rican does not present a variety of denominations. Esmeralda thinks about her soul, but this typically happens only when a religious experience or opportunity presents itself. For example, Mami sends her to Sunday school one morning, not necessarily out of concern for her soul, but to give herself some time off. At the meeting, Esmeralda is struck by the influence of the preacher and the reaction of the congregation, but it takes these external factors in order for the reader to see her contemplating her own soul.

When she is asked to close the dead baby’s eyes in order to send its soul to Heaven, or when she walks at the head of a funeral procession, she thinks about mortality, but not religion. For all of her self-scrutiny, organized religion plays a very small part in it. In fact, she describes one set of neighbors as Evangelicals with a mental sneer. Her attitude is never hostile, but systemized religion is treated with something like a shrug in the book. One exception is when she sees that Papi has been reading a book of Nostradamus’ prophecies. While it is not a religious book, she is appalled by the gruesome renditions of apocalyptic disasters and the punishments of the wicked. Religion is more of a tradition than a tool. 

After Mami gets a job, she is always the steady worker in the family. When they need money, she earns it. When she loses her job, she finds another. When she visits the welfare office, she insists that Esmeralda tell the worker that it is only for a little while. She instills in her children the idea that hard work is all you need to get ahead, particularly in America.

America is definitely an improvement over the living conditions in Puerto Rico, but in the book, it is also not the romanticized wonderland existing in so many immigrant narratives. Esmeralda lives in dangerous neighborhoods where she is exposed to sexual harassment. She finds Brooklyn a suffocating place and cannot understand how people can live this way, stacked on top of one another. She longs for the Puerto Rican grass beneath her feet, not the hard, stinking city asphalt.

She is able to reap some of the benefits of moving to America—attending an American university, making use of the American welfare system—but sees that for others, it is still not enough. She is the only one of the eleven Santiago children to attend college. However, it is her hard work in America that allows her to make as much progress as she does. Even if she had been willing to put out the same amount of effort in Puerto Rico, there would have been fewer opportunities for her to make use of it.