Summary
When I Was Puerto Rican is a memoir narrated in the first person by the author Esmeralda Santiago. The prologue “How to Eat a Guava” begins with the author looking at guava in the supermarket. She’s an adult, living in New York City, and seeing the fruit reminds her of all the times she ate guava as a child in Puerto Rico. She vividly describes eating the fruit, remembering that on the day she left Puerto Rico she savored one on the ride to the airport. In the present, she puts the guava down, walking instead towards the apples and pears.
The memoir then commences with Chapter 1, Jíbara, when the author is four years old and living in Puerto Rico. Her family moves to Macún, a neighborhood in Toa Baja in the countryside outside of San Juan, the capital. Esmeralda's family consists of her mother and father, Ramona and Pablo, and her two younger sisters Delsa and Norma. Their one-room house is made of corrugated metal sheets and crooked wooden floorboards, with an outhouse and a shed for the kitchen. Pablo works in construction and decides to repair the floor of their home. Esmeralda, or Negi as she is called by her family, is determined to help him. Worried about snakes and scorpions, Ramona forbids the girls to go near the house. Esmeralda disobeys, helping her father carry one of the old floorboards; suddenly, she is covered by hundreds of termites that bite her all over. Acting quickly, Ramona rips off Esmeralda’s clothes and scrubs her down. Comforting Esmeralda after, Ramona reminds Esmeralda that this is what happens when she disobeys her mother.
Every morning, Esmeralda’s family listens to a radio program that plays the traditional music of jíbaros, a term referring to rural Puerto Ricans. The songs emphasize the struggles of jíbaros as well as their close relationship with nature, their independence, and their deep pride for Puerto Rico. One day, Esmeralda finds out that her nickname “Negi” is short for negrita because of how dark her skin was as a baby. When Esmeralda asks if she’s Black her mother responds “It’s a sweet name because we love you, Negrita.” Ramona has another child. She gives birth in her house with the help of one of their neighbors. Esmeralda worries that another child will further separate her from Ramona who will forget about her.
After her brother Hector is born, Esmeralda begins to notice her parents fighting with more frequency. Pablo disappears for days at a time, causing her mother to alternately cry and fly into a rage. Ramona accuses him of sleeping with other women and wasting what little money the family has. In such a small house, Esmeralda and her siblings can hear every word. In one of their fights Esmeralda finds out she has a sister, Margie, whom her father had with another woman. Margie is a year older than Esmeralda. Esmeralda daydreams about what it would be like to have a sister her age who she could play with rather than take care of, as she does with her younger siblings. However, when Esmeralda asks if Margie can visit, Pablo reveals that Margie and her mother have moved to New York. Breaking down, he hugs Esmeralda, who wishes that he would continue losing people he loves so that she can comfort him. Eventually her parents make up and Ramona gets pregnant again.
When Esmeralda starts school her world expands. She realizes there’s a whole new set of rules for how to behave outside the home: never showing anger in front of strangers, respecting one's elders, and the subtle codes of children. Esmeralda is able to compare her family life to that of her classmates, some with similar dynamics and others quite different. Her school uniform is the only possession that solely belongs to her, and Esmeralda is proud of it. Pablo disappears again. After waiting four days, Ramona packs the family’s belongings in pillowcases and a tattered suitcase and leaves with their four children. As they march out of town neighbors watch, smirking or avoiding their gaze and not offering to help. Getting on a bus to San Juan, Ramona proclaims that life will be better in the city.
All of Ramona’s large family lives in Santurce, a suburb of San Juan, with the exception of her mother, Tata, who left for New York City. In Santurce, they spend time with Ramona’s family; aunts, uncles, and cousins Esmeralda has never met come over to the house. Esmeralda’s family is still poor; their house is not much better than their old house in Macún, but it has running water and electricity. Santiago paints a picture of San Juan in the early 1950s: a crush of people, traffic, and stores selling everything from plaster saints to pineapple ices. There are ornate iron fences dividing private homes from the bustle of the city and bars with jukeboxes loudly playing boleros. Esmeralda is immediately singled out and teased by her classmates at her new school for being a jíbara: for being too loud and wild, a country girl unused to city ways. Although her parents remain separated, Pablo comes to visit the children. Ramona gives birth to Alicia, their fifth child. Ramona remains distant and cold but little by little Pablo wins her over again and the family returns to Macún in the country.
Esmeralda is overjoyed to be home again, feeling more at home running through the countryside and picking fresh fruit from the trees that she does in the city. Esmeralda’s best friend in Macún is Juanita. Together they explore the hidden parts of Macún, such as the road to Jurutungo, the neighboring town. The girls overhear women in Macún complaining about all sorts of pocavergúenzas (shameless acts) that take place in Jurutungo where they say women of bad repute live. These acts include their husbands sleeping with other women and going to get drunk. For this, the town fascinates and scares them. Juanita’s grandfather Don Berto passes away. He always told jíbaro stories to the girls of phantoms and enchanted trees while sharpening his machete. Esmeralda’s family goes to the funeral and she and Juanita lead the procession of bringing his body to the cemetery. Afterward, Esmeralda asks Pablo what a soul is and does. He tells her it is the part of the person that feels, that makes a person write poetry.
One day, on an errand for her mother, Esmeralda goes to Doña Lola’s house. Esmeralda mentions that they will soon have electricity in Macún, and Doña Lola sighs, responding that with development (running water, paved roads, etc) the Americanos will come. She reveals that the giant farm which Esmeralda has always known as Lalao’s finca is actually owned by a rich American man named Rockefeller. Doña Lola worries that when Rockefeller builds a hotel on the land they’ll force everyone in Macún to move. Esmeralda is intrigued by the idea of Americans, having never seen one, but her mother brushes off Doña Lola’s worries saying that there’s been talk of a hotel for years and nothing has happened. Ramona has another daughter; hearing their mother in pain, the children worry but head off to their neighbor’s house to wait for the baby to be born. The first week in May, Ramona urges all of the children to strip down and head out to the yard. Laughing Ramona dances in the rain, and the children join her. It’s good luck to get wet by the first rain in May. As the rainy season continues, the family stays at home, often spending the hours mending or sleeping as rain turns the yard to mud and pounds down on the metal roof.
Analysis
In the prologue, Esmeralda is an adult living in New York City. She sees guava at the supermarket and feels nostalgic. The guavas are a symbol of her childhood in Puerto Rico: sweet, full of life, and often complicated. Esmeralda clarifies that you have to know how to eat guava, it is not an easy fruit to eat but it’s delicious. Turning away from the guavas she moves toward the apples and pears which she says are predictable and bittersweet like her life in New York. Esmeralda’s choice of fruit marks how her identity and connection with Puerto Rico have changed through her time living in New York.
The first chapter begins with Esmeralda at four years old, the oldest child in her family. Her family is poor, living in a small one-room house without electricity or running water; but as a child their poverty does not bother Esmeralda. She is happy to play outside with her siblings. Ramona, Esmeralda’s mother, does not take so easily to life in the country. She’s frightened by things such as snakes that Esmeralda is curious about. Ramona is a strict disciplinarian, often ordering and reprimanding her children. Yet, when Esmeralda is bitten by termites, Ramona shows a softer side, rubbing her daughter's back and comforting her.
Each chapter begins with an epigraph, a saying in Spanish with an English translation to highlight a theme or subject of the chapter. Santiago includes Spanish words throughout the memoir, often because they cannot be translated into English without losing their full meaning. Esmeralda’s discussion with her mother about jíbaros reveals the complexities of identity, a key theme in the memoir. In Puerto Rico, there are stereotypes about country people. Although her father’s side of the family are jíbaros, her mother negates who they are, saying jíbaros are looked down on for their accent and customs. Yet the epigraph of chapter one, “A jíbaro can never wash away the stain of the plantain,” uses a metaphor to comment on how this identity is a part of them, and cannot be washed away.
After her brother Hector is born, the fighting worsens between Ramona and Pablo. Ramona is quick to defend herself when she feels she’s being treated unfairly. Pablo, normally easygoing and cheerful, disappears into himself or goes away from the family for days at a time. Ramona accuses him of having affairs. Furthermore, Ramona is left all alone with four children for days on end, isolated from family and friends who live in the city. Pablo chafes at Ramona’s complaints and judgment of their life in the country. Esmeralda describes a cycle of fighting and making up with the children tiptoeing around their parents for fear of angering them. Santiago uses Pablo and Ramona’s relationship to establish the theme of family conflict.
Infidelity is common in Macún. Esmeralda overhears conversations between Ramona and her friends that men are “sinverguenzas,” meaning they are without shame. The women talk about how men are always finding other women whom they call "putas" or whores to sleep with. This sharp morality is present throughout Esmeralda’s childhood, often weaponized between women. According to society, there are upright women—wives and mothers who stoically suffer their husband’s infidelities and abandonment—and there are bad women, “putas” who flout societal rules by expressing their sexuality and are punished for it. Esmeralda hears pain and anger in these overheard conversations, as many women are forced to care for their children and the home without the support of their husbands. Through these conversations, Santiago explores the interconnecting themes of abandonment and gender roles.
Ramona finally reaches a breaking point and decides to leave Macún and head to Santurce where she has family. This is not the first time her mother has packed up and left their father; the pattern has played out before. Esmeralda’s world further expands in Santurce, and she’s fascinated by the bustle of life in the city. In the city, Pablo makes efforts to spend time with the children and Esmeralda happily watches Pablo win back Ramona’s affections, feeling hopeful that their family will be reunited again. Back in Macún, Esmeralda is reunited with her best friend Juanita. When Juanita’s grandfather dies most of the town gets together to mourn. Esmeralda’s family is not particularly religious so she's intrigued by the various funeral customs such as Pablo leading rosary prayers, and the funeral procession. Esmeralda is curious about the world and it’s often Pablo who answers her questions: what’s a sin or what does a soul do?
Esmeralda’s conversation with her neighbor Doña Lola foreshadows the future involvement of Americans in Esmeralda’s world. Santiago introduces the theme of imperialism, and how the United States influences the lives of people in Puerto Rico. As a young child, Esmeralda just feels curiosity about the Americans, but as she grows up she will begin to understand how complex the relationship is between Puerto Rico and the United States. Dancing in the rain, Ramona enjoys a rare moment of levity, a luxury she normally does not have as the mother of seven children.
