Esmeralda Santiago

Following the enchanting story recounted in When I Was Puerto Rican of the author's emergence from the barrios of Brooklyn to the prestigious Performing Arts High School in Manhattan, Esmeralda Santiago delivers the tale of her young adulthood, where she continually strives to find a balance between becoming American and staying Puerto Rican. While translating for her mother Mami at the welfare office in the morning, starring as Cleopatra at New York's...

En su nueva memoria, la clamada autora de Cuando era puertorriqueña continua su cautivante crónica describiendo su salida de los barrios de Brooklyn a los teatros de Manhattan. «Negi», como cariñosamente la llama su familia, deja Macún, un campo de Puerto Rico, en 1961 para vivir en un apartamento de tres habitaciones en un proyecto de viviendas, con siete hermanas y hermanos pequeños, una abuela preguntona, y una mama estricta que no la dejaba...

Una maravillosa antología nueva—las escritoras y los escritores latinos más admirados comparten recuerdos de sus madres. Las mujeres amorosamente retratadas en las Las Mamis representan la diversidad de la vida y cultura latinas. Provienen de las familias ricas de las grandes ciudades de Latinoamérica, de familias campesinas emigrantes y también de la variedad de mundos intermedios. Además, comparten todas una extraordinaria fuerza interior,...

Deftly written and fiercely resilient, América's Dream explores the ever-shifting definition of what it means to be American and exemplifies the spirit of every immigrant who has dared to realize the American dream. América Gonzalez is a hotel housekeeper on Vieques, an island off the coast of Puerto Rico, cleaning up after wealthy foreigners who don't look her in the eye. Her alcoholic mother resents her; her married boyfriend, Correa, beats her;...

La historia de Esmeralda Santiago comienza en la parte rural de Puerto Rico, donde sus padres y siete hermanos, en continuas luchas los unos con los otros, vivian una vida alborotada pero llena de amor y ternura. De nina, Esmeralda aprendio a apreciar como se come una guayaba, a distinguir la cancion del coqui, a identificar los ingredientes en las morcillas y a ayudar a que el alma de un bebe muerto subiero al cielo. Pero precisamente cuando Esmeralda...

América Gonzalez is a hotel housekeeper on an island off the coast of Puerto Rico, cleaning up after wealthy foreigners who don't look her In the eye. Her alcoholic mother resents her; her married boyfriend, Correa, beats her; and their fourteen-year-old daughter thinks life would be better anywhere but with América. So when América is offered the chance to work as alive-in housekeeper and nanny for a family in Westchester County, New York, she...

While preparing for Christmas in Puerto Rico, seven-year-old Esmeralda asks the Three Magi for a baby doll like her cousin's, but when they bring something else instead she gains a deeper understanding of the meaning of the holiday.

The memoir follows the author as she frees herself from the influence of her mother, only to be caught up in a new, romantic, relationship.