When I Was Puerto Rican: A Memoir

One of "The Best Memoirs of a Generation" (Oprah's Book Club): a young woman's journey from the mango groves and barrios of Puerto Rico to Brooklyn, and eventually on to Harvard

In a childhood full of tropical beauty and domestic strife, poverty and tenderness, Esmeralda Santiago learned the proper way to eat a guava, the sound of tree frogs, the taste of morcilla, and the formula for ushering a dead baby's soul to heaven. But 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 a new identity. In the first of her three acclaimed memoirs, Esmeralda brilliantly recreates her tremendous journey from the idyllic landscape and tumultuous family life of her earliest years, to translating for her mother at the welfare office, and to high honors at Harvard.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 02/28/2006
ISBN: 9780306814525
Pages: 278
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.50w x 0.80d
Accelerated Reader Quiz #/Name: 20915 / When I Was Puerto Rican
Reading Level: 6 / Interest Level: Upper Grade / Point Value: 13