When I Was Puerto Rican (Bound for Schools & Libraries)
Esmeralda Santiago
(Author)
Description
Esmeralda Santiago's story begins in rural Puerto Rico, where her childhood was full of both tenderness and domestic strife, tropical sounds and sights as well as poverty. Growing up, she learned the proper way to eat a guava, the sound of tree frogs in the mango groves at night, the taste of the delectable sausage called "morcilla," and the formula for ushering a dead baby's soul to heaven. As she enters school we see the clash, both hilarious and fierce, of Puerto Rican and Yankee culture. When her mother, Mami, a force of nature, takes off to New York with her seven, soon to be eleven children, Esmeralda, the oldest, must learn new rules, a new language, and eventually take on a new identity. In this first volume of her much-praised, bestselling trilogy, Santiago brilliantly recreates the idyllic landscape and tumultuous family life of her earliest years and her tremendous journey from the "barrio" to Brooklyn, from translating for her mother at the welfare office to high honors at Harvard.
Product Details
Price
$32.65
$30.36
Publisher
Turtleback Books
Publish Date
February 28, 2006
Pages
288
Dimensions
5.3 X 8.0 X 1.0 inches | 0.8 pounds
Language
English
Type
Prebound
EAN/UPC
9780606148818
BISAC Categories:
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Become an affiliateAbout the Author
Esmeralda Santiago is the author of three groundbreaking memoirs: When I was Puerto Rican, Almost a Woman (which she adapted into a Peabody Award-winning movie for PBS Masterpiece), and The Turkish Lover. Her fiction includes the novels América's Dream (also made into a film) and Conquistadora, and a children's book, A Doll for Navidades. Esmeralda is passionate about the artistic development of young people and has traveled the world as a public speaker encouraging literacy, memoir writing, and storytelling. Her books have been translated into fifteen languages.