Summary
Esmeralda and her classmates in Macún begin having daily English classes. At the same time, a community center is opened to provide free breakfasts for the children. As part of the program, experts from San Juan and the United States give a workshop for mothers in the community about nutrition and hygiene. The experts lecture the mothers about brushing teeth, parasites, and nutrition. The food pyramids they show as the model for nutrition include none of the local foods, suggesting sliced white bread, pears, and cereal rather than the rice, beans, and local fruits and vegetables. When the women bring this to their attention one expert responds, “It is best not to make substitutions for the recommended foods. That would throw the whole thing off.” At the end of the workshop, the women are given bags of groceries with canned and jarred food common in American supermarkets.
When Esmeralda and the rest of the students receive a polio vaccine at school, her classmate Ignacio whispers to her that it’s because of politics. Since it’s an election year, the government is providing vaccines and free breakfasts to win votes. Ignacio calls the Americans imperialists and gringos. Later, Esmeralda asks her father about the word. Pablo is nervous to hear Esmeralda use the word and cautions her to never call an American a gringo, that it’s considered an insult. He explains that in 1898 the United States invaded Puerto Rico and made it a colony, and that many Puerto Ricans resent the United States’ efforts to change their country and culture. The students file into the community center for their first free American breakfast. The community center is decorated with posters of Dick and Jane, and other images of white mainstream American life. Juanita is excited, in awe of the American food, but Esmeralda is much more skeptical. The eggs, made from a powder, look nothing like the fresh eggs she’s used to from their hens at home. Esmeralda pushes the food around on her plate, glad that she does not like the American food more than traditional Puerto Rican cooking.
In school, students learn a song called “En mi viejo San Juan” (In my old San Juan). Talking to Pablo after school, Esmeralda learns that the singer wrote the song when he was leaving Puerto Rico for New York. She muses that the song is a sad one, and that maybe the singer did not want to leave Puerto Rico. Like many Puerto Ricans, Ramona’s cousins and mother, Tata, are in New York. They send the family a box of hand-me-down clothes, most of them barely worn or used. One of Esmeralda’s sisters exclaims that their cousins must be rich to give away such clothes, but Ramona says that anyone in New York can afford such things. Excitedly, Esmeralda writes a thank you letter to her grandmother, Tata. She enjoys writing, taking her time with the newly learned cursive handwriting. However, Ramona tells Esmeralda to rewrite the letter because there’s a mistake in it. Esmeralda talks back to her mother and Ramona loses her temper, roughly grabbing Esmeralda’s arm and forcing her back into the chair. Crying, Esmeralda rewrites the letter.
The children are given milk with peanut butter at the community center. Everyone is dubious, even Juanita; when Esmeralda drinks her milk she gags, spitting it out and breaking the glass. Reprimanded by the teacher, Esmeralda says the milk is sour. The teacher denies it, and in the back and forth between the two insinuates Esmeralda should be grateful for what she gets because at least she’s not hungry. Indignant, Esmeralda defends her parents saying she’s never gone hungry and calls the food “disgusting gringo imperialist food” before running out. By the time she gets home, Esmeralda is genuinely sick. She faints and ends up in bed with a severe fever for weeks. By the time she returns to school, the elections have passed and the free breakfasts are over.
Esmeralda stays with her paternal grandmother for a week in San Juan. Pablo takes her, and on the way, they stop at a market to eat. She sees an older woman at a stall selling plaster busts of Jesus crowned with thorns. While waiting for her food, Esmeralda begins spinning around on a stool and falls over. The older woman reprimands Esmeralda saying that, “Jesus doesn’t love children who don’t behave.” Another man at the market dismisses the older woman calling her a crazy jamona. Later, Esmeralda asks Pablo what a jamona is; he explains it's a woman who never married, and that it’s an insult because it means no one wants her.
They arrive at Esmeralda’s grandmother’s house: a two-story building, with medicinal herbs and flowers out front where she lives with her husband, Don Higinio. Don Higinio is a quiet, simple man who speaks in a jíbaro dialect. He leaves the house every day before dawn to go to sell oranges from a cart, peeling them with a pocket knife and selling them for a nickel. He arrives home every evening late, and sleeps in a small room, the only one unadorned by his wife’s crocheting. After a quick meal, Pablo takes his leave saying it’s a long way back to Macún. When questioned why he has to leave so early, Pablo becomes defensive and looks pleadingly at Esmeralda. At this moment, Esmeralda realizes her father is lying, that he’s not going straight home to Macún. Angry, Esmeralda holds back tears and remains stiff when Pablo hugs her goodbye. In the evening, Esmeralda sits on the stoop looking out at the street and wondering if Ramona is right, that Pablo sees other women behind her back. As much as she tries to resist, Esmeralda begins to cry. Worried her grandmother will ask why, Esmeralda slams a door on her hand so she’ll have a plausible excuse. Her grandmother comes running; she pulls Esmeralda onto her lap, rocking and humming a lullaby to comfort her.
Esmeralda’s grandparents' house is covered with crocheted pieces and religious items: rosaries, images of the Virgin Maria, and other saints. One day, her grandmother tentatively offers to teach Esmeralda how to crochet. Excited, Esmeralda agrees, fascinated by the intricate patterns of her grandmother’s needlework. As she learns, Esmeralda begins to understand why her grandmother always seems enveloped in a magical silence when she works. The concentration required to crochet brings Esmeralda into a near-hypnotic state. Esmeralda’s parents are not religious, but her grandmother is a devout Catholic and teaches Esmeralda about the faith. On the way to church, she tells Esmeralda she should only have “good thoughts in her head.” Never having stopped to classify her thoughts as good or bad, Esmeralda becomes hyper-aware of all sorts of “bad thoughts” she’s having: becoming angry at a boy who bumps into her or feeling jealous of the two alterboys' tunics. It’s Esmeralda’s first time in a church and she copies her grandmother’s actions throughout the service.
On Sunday afternoon, Esmeralda gets ready for her father to pick her up. As the day stretches on, both her and her grandmother realize he’s not coming. Esmeralda thinks of how many nights she saw Ramona waiting for Pablo to come home, with his dinner warming on the fire. Sometimes he still had not come back by morning. Esmeralda realizes Ramona must feel as she does now, burying her face in her pillow she cries. Eventually, Ramona comes to pick up Esmeralda, entering the house with a falsely cheery demeanor. Yet, the dark circles under her eyes and the anger that flashes over her face when she mentions Pablo reveal how she’s truly feeling. Ramona shares with her mother-in-law that they now have electricity back in Macún. As Esmeralda gets ready to head home, her mother and grandmother sit in the kitchen talking about Pablo. Ramona’s eyes are swollen when Esmeralda returns. In this moment, Esmeralda feels a flash of hate for her father, and vows that she would rather remain a jamona than suffer for a man the way Ramona does.
Analysis
Talking with her father, Esmeralda begins to wrap her head around the idea of the United States' imperialism and how it affects her and everyone else in Puerto Rico. The students have to learn English in school. While many Puerto Ricans are discriminated against for speaking English with an accent, the few Americans that speak Spanish are never judged for their Spanish accents. The food they are given at the community center is another imposition of American culture and ideas. Even as a child, Esmeralda senses the unequal power dynamic and chafes against being forced to eat food that she finds unappetizing. The fact that she’s expected to be grateful for it adds further insult to injury. Her outburst after drinking the rancid milk is a form of rebellion, pushing back on the idea that her parents cannot take care of her or that she and her family should adopt an American way of life.
The title of chapter four, “The Amerkan Invasion of Macún'' alludes to the actual invasion of Puerto Rico by the U.S. in 1898. Santiago uses the word invasion to speak to the unequal power dynamics between the United States and Puerto Rico: the United States enacting economic, political, and cultural power over Puerto Rico, which remains a colony. Santiago highlights the theme of imperialism in the nutrition workshop with the mothers of Macún. The experts who come to lecture the mothers reveal an utter lack of interest in the women’s experiences and opinions. They make no effort to connect or adapt their content to the local people and environment. When the women point out that they cannot access the recommended food where they live, the comment is dismissed. While many of the families in Macún are poor, they have access to fresh eggs, fruit, and vegetables from their gardens. Yet the women are given canned and processed food from the Americans with the message being, our way is the right way to eat.
The theme of immigration also becomes more prevalent in Esmeralda’s life and this section of the memoir. The patriotic songs Esmeralda learns at school speak of the sea and lush island with longing. A longing that mirrors Santiago’s own desire for home after immigrating to the United States. Simultaneously, the idea that life is easier in the U.S. is reinforced by the beautiful clothes that Esmeralda and her family receive from their relatives in New York. Esmeralda admires the shiny patent-leather shoes and the sweaters with only one button missing, items her family, who live in poverty, would never have access to on their own.
Santiago explores the complexity of Esmeralda’s relationships with her parents. The way Ramona forces Esmeralda to rewrite the letter to Tata portrays how quickly Ramona’s anger can flare up. Ramona gets exasperated with Esmeralda’s questions and rebellious nature, at times using violence to make her obey. Pablo, on the other hand, has a more patient nature, and responds to Esmeralda’s curiosity about the world around her.
However, as she grows up, Esmeralda also begins to see a darker side of her father. Esmeralda’s experience at her grandmother’s house deepens the themes of abandonment and family conflict. Esmeralda has witnessed Pablo’s absences from home before, but the visit with her grandmother is the first time she personally feels the hurt and betrayal of his absences and lying. Esmeralda refuses to let her father see her cry, a parallel to Ramona who hides her loneliness and sadness behind anger. Does her father see other women because he doesn’t love them, Esmeralda wonders?
With sympathy, Esmeralda reflects back on how many nights she’s seen Ramona wait up for Pablo: taking care of all the children while making sure he has food and his clothes are always clean. Santiago uses personification to describe the pain Ramona feels, as something palpable that “crawled under my skin, where it settled like prickly bristles.” The family conflict caused by Pablo’s periodic abandonment affects the whole family, with Esmeralda absorbing her mother’s pain. Esmeralda feels a flash of hate for Pablo, wishing he would die, and then immediately feeling so guilty she slaps herself. Many of the adult women in Esmeralda's life portray a resigned attitude toward men’s behavior. However, Esmeralda thinks back on the single older woman in the market, the jamona, whom everyone looked down on for not being married. She feels that it would be better to be unmarried than to suffer so deeply over a man.
