When I Was Puerto Rican: Blog Post - Ben Poulios

When I Was Puerto Rican: Blog Post

When I Was Puerto Rican was a “good” memoir. Esmeralda Santiago, the author, did not indulge herself in the depressing parts of her life. Esmeralda did not seek revenge for the bad things that have happened to her by writing this memoir. She is honest about everything that has happened in her life, and does not make herself look like a brave hero who was never afraid of anything.

Esmeralda Santiago did not make herself look like the best person in the world such as when she had a horrible teacher named Señora Leona that would choose Esmeralda to answer a question Señora Leona knew she didn’t know. Esmeralda wrote about how she didn’t know the answer, and Esmeralda tried to use a trick involving fruits, but it took her a long time to figure it out. In the end, Esmeralda wrote that she didn’t know the answer, so Señora Leona had to do the problem. Another example of the author being honest about her life and showing she was afraid of things was the time when Esmeralda had to go to the bathroom in El Mangle. The toilet was a whole in the floor that opened up straight into the disgusting lagoon filled with food and diapers. Esmeralda was scared that something would reach up, grab her, and drag her into the water.

Not only is Esmeralda honest about her life, Esmeralda does not indulge herself in all the bad things that has happened to her in her life. Esmeralda writes about happy things in her life. An example of this is when it was the first rain of May, and Esmeralda’s mother told her children it was ‘good luck to get wet by the first May rain’ (Santiago 59).  Esmeralda wrote about how she and her brothers and sisters played in the rain and the mud caused by the rain. Esmeralda could’ve written about how it was muddy and dark, but she wrote about how she and her family danced in the rain while singing nursery rhymes.

Esmeralda did not seek revenge by writing this memoir. An example of this is that her dad had left Esmeralda and her family multiple times, but she never said in the book that she hated her dad and wished he would go away and never come back. She wrote about how she loved her dad and used to help him put new floorboards in by holding the nails. She wrote about how her dad was gone for days at a time, and she was angry at him sometimes, but she never said she didn’t love him.