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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.
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 prestigious Performing Arts High School in the afternoons, and dancing salsa all night, she begins to defy her mother’s protective rules, only to find that independence brings new dangers and dilemmas.
As a young girl growing up in Spain, Ana Larragoity Cubillas is powerfully drawn to Puerto Rico by the diaries of an ancestor who traveled there with Ponce de Leon. And in handsome twin brothers Ramon and Inocente—both in love with Ana—she finds a way to get there. Marrying Ramon at the age of eighteen, she travels across the ocean to Hacienda los Gemelos, a remote sugar plantation the brothers have inherited. But soon the Civil War erupts in the United States, and Ana finds her livelihood, and perhaps even her life, threatened by the very people on whose backs her wealth has been built: the hacienda’s slaves, whose richly drawn stories unfold alongside her own in this epic novel of love, discovery and adventure.
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 takes it as a sign that a door to escape has been opened. Yet even as América revels in the comparative luxury of her new life, daring to care about a man other than Correa, she is faced with dramatic proof that no matter what she does, she can't get away from her past.
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK • 2022 INTERNATIONAL LATINO BOOK AWARD WINNER FOR FICTION FORECAST: Storm clouds are on the horizon in L.A. Weather, a fun, fast-paced novel of a Mexican American family from the author of the #1 Los Angeles Times bestseller Esperanza’s Box of Saints. “There’s a 100% chance you’ll be paging through this book to uncover the secrets and deception that could potentially burn everything down!”—Reese Witherspoon “This is by far one of the most endearing L.A. novels in recent memory.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) "A lively and ambitious family novel."—New York Times Book Review Oscar, the weather-obsessed ...
Enthralled admirers of Esmeralda Santiago's memoirs of her childhood have yearned to read more. Now, in The Turkish Lover, Esmeralda finally breaks out of the monumental struggle with her powerful mother, only to elope into the spell of an exotic love affair. At the heart of the story is Esmeralda's relationship with "the Turk," a passion that gradually becomes a prison out of which she must emerge to become herself. The expansive humanity, earthy humor, and psychological courage that made Esmeralda's first two books so successful are on full display again in The Turkish Lover.
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.
Twenty-five celebrated Latino writers delight and move us with their recollections of Christmas in this splendid holiday extravaganza. From Julia Alvarez's tale of how Santicló delivered a beloved uncle from political oppression to Junot Díaz's story of his own uneasy assimilation on his first Christmas in America, to Sandra Cisneros's poignant memories of her late father's holiday dinners, Las Christmas gives us true stories from writers of many traditions--memories of Christmas and Hanukkah that vividly capture the pride and pain, joy and heartbreak, that so often accompany the holidays in the Americas. Richly illustrated and embellished with songs and poems, along with recipes for an unforgettable Christmas dinner--from traditional sweet tamales to Puerto Rican asopao (stew) and coquito (coconut eggnog)--this is an enduring treasury of Latino writing to read again and again. A heartwarming holiday gift.
A marvelous new anthology from the editors of Las Christmas in which our most admired Latino authors share memories of their mothers. The women lovingly portrayed in Las Mamis represent a cross section of Latino life and culture. They come from rich families in the big cities of Latin America, from rural immigrant families, and from the worlds in between-and they share an extraordinary inner strength, often maintained against incredible odds. Pressed by conflicting cultural expectations, circumstance, and religion, they have managed the challenges of motherhood, leaving enduring legacies for their children. Now, in these vivid, poignant, and sometimes hilarious reminiscences-all of them infused with distinct sabor latino-Las Mamis celebrates the universality of family love and the special bond between mothers and children. Contributors include: Esmeralda Santiago, Piri Thomas, Marjorie Agosin, Junot Diaz, Alba Ambert, Liz Balmaseda, Mandalit del Barco, Gioconda Belli, Maria Escandon, Dagoberto Gilb, Francisco Goldman, Jaime Manrique, Gustavo Perez-Firmat, Ilan Stavans
Drawn to the exotic island of Puerto Rico by the diaries of an ancestor who traveled there with Ponce de León, Ana Cubillas becomes involved with enamored twin brothers Ramón and Inocente before convincing them to claim a sugar plantation they have inherited.