We reacted in what was to become a pattern for us: what frightened her I became curious about, and what she found exciting terrified me.
When Pablo rips up the floor in the family’s home to put in a new one, the dirt floor is exposed and Ramona fears that snakes and scorpions will crawl into the house. Esmeralda however is drawn to the idea of slithering creatures underfoot. As an adult reflecting back, Santiago comments that this pattern of push and pull between herself and Ramona would become common. What Esmeralda is drawn to frightens Ramona and vice versa. Both Ramona and Esmeralda have strong characters that cause them to butt heads, and in this quote Santiago foreshadows the at-times contentious relationship between herself and her mother.
If we were not jíbaros, why did we live like them?...My own grandparents, whom I was to respect as well as love, were said to be jíbaros. But I couldn’t be one, nor was I to call anyone a jíbaro, lest they be offended…I was puzzled by the hypocrisy of celebrating a people everyone looked down on.
As a young child, Esmeralda is confused by the contradictions around her. She observes that her family live as jíbaros (rural Puerto Ricans) do: their house, the music they listen to, and that their neighbors and family in Macún are jíbaros. Yet, her mother insists they are from the city and are not country folk, who are mocked in the city for their unsophisticated ways. The hypocrisy of celebrating qualities that are simultaneously looked down on confuses Esmeralda. It also reveals a division between her mother, who is from the city and dislikes the country, and her father, who is at home in the country.
“That’s part of being an imperialist. They expect us to do things their way, even in our own country.”
In a discussion between Pablo and Esmeralda about the United States, Puerto Rico, and imperialism, Pablo sums up the effects of imperialism in the quote above. Living in Puerto Rico, Esmeralda is beginning to notice the ways that American culture is being forced on Puerto Ricans, even in their own country. Her father describes imperialism as the imposition of values, language, and will which reveals a sense of superiority that Americans feel over Puerto Ricans. Pablo's pride in Puerto Rico and its customs hints at his decision to stay on the island rather than move to New York with his family. Santiago explores the theme of the imperialist relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico in the memoir.
I couldn’t understand a word they said. But their pain bounced off the walls and crawled under my skin, where it settled like prickly bristles.
Esmeralda observes her grandmother and Ramona talking about Pablo’s absences. As a child, she is barred from listening to their conversation, but their tension and pain are palpable. Santiago uses personification to talk about their pain as if it were a living thing: a creature that bounces off the walls of the kitchen and settles under Esmeralda’s skin, prickling her. The themes of abandonment and family conflict intersect as Santiago explores how Pablo’s abandonment causes pain and strife between mother and son, husband and wife, and parents and children.
I raised my head to the rain, to wash my face and clear the nasty stench that lodged in my nostrils, as if my insides were rotting. But the foul air was thick and oppressive, clinging to us as if anything new, clean, and fresh had to be contaminated by this noxious atmosphere or it wouldn’t survive.
Walking into their new neighborhood in El Mangle, Esmeralda is hit with the stench of the contaminated lagoon below. She tries to clear the smell from her nostrils with the rain, but it clings to her as if set on contaminating anything fresh and clean that enters. This quote represents the experience of growing up, and how Esmeralda’s childhood innocence becomes contaminated and hardened by the world around her in order to survive.
If I came back looking like I’d been crying, Mami would worry, and if I told her why, she’d be angry. It was better to just swallow the tightness in my throat and rub the hurt away. That way no one would ever know.
While living in El Mangle, Esmeralda thinks back on the times when she and Pablo would watch the sun go down in Mancún. Esmeralda misses her home and father. She begins to cry but stops herself, knowing it will upset Ramona. Growing up with a turbulent home life, Esmeralda has learned to hide her feelings as a matter of survival. It is a way of avoiding more conflict with adults who are already preoccupied with other concerns and might view her feelings as another burden.
“But when Mami? You keep saying I should do this, I shouldn’t do that, I should do the other. All because I’m almost a señorita. What does that mean? What does it have to do with anything?”
Esmeralda’s world is full of rules about what men and women should and shouldn’t do. It is a principal theme in When I Was Puerto Rican. At twelve years old, Esmeralda is constantly hearing that she is almost a young woman or “señorita.” While asking Ramona for dating advice, Esmeralda begins to feel misunderstood by her mother. Esmeralda breaks down, confused and frustrated by all the rules and expectations that seem to have little to do with how she actually feels.
“For her it began as an adventure that turned out to have more twists and turns than she expected or knew how to handle. For me, the person I was becoming when we left was erased, and another one was created. The Puerto Rican jíbara who longed for the green quiet of a tropical afternoon was to become a hybrid who would never forgive the uprooting.”
As the plane takes off for New York City, Santiago reflects on how Ramona’s decision to migrate from Puerto Rico changed their life trajectories. Ramona views the move with a sense of hope and adventure. Yet, for Esmeralda, she is ripped from her father and home. The quote alludes to the title of the book, When I Was Puerto Rican. Santiago specifically uses the past tense “was” to comment on how she is not purely Puerto Rican but a hybrid of the two cultures in which she grew up, Puerto Rico and the United States. Santiago foreshadows the pain and resentment this uprooting caused, and how the jíbara version of herself, who was happiest in the Puerto Rican countryside, was erased that day.
“They treat us like animals, don’t they care that we’re human beings, just like the rest of them?”
One day at the welfare office Ramona loses her temper after a social worker is rude to her. She grates at being treated as less than others, outraged by the treatment she and other women face as they navigate an exclusionary and discriminatory system. Afterward, Ramona tries to brush off the incident as funny, but this quote reveals her indignation. Ramona is normally optimistic about life in the United States, however, Santiago shows that Ramona too feels the sting of being regarded as a second-class citizen.
“We spoke in Spanglish, a combination of English and Spanish in which we hopped from one language to the other depending on which word came first.”
Her first year in New York, Esmeralda is walking home with Yolanda, another immigrant student. Both are still learning English and they speak in a mix of the two languages. Throughout the novel, Santiago explores the themes of identity and migration, and how one affects the other. This quote is a clear example of that. As Esmeralda adapts to her new home, she develops a hybrid way of speaking that blends the two cultures and languages: Puerto Rico and the United States, Spanish and English.
