Analysis Of When I Was Puerto Rican

The term Hispanic refers to people who are capable of speaking and comprehending the Spanish language, and whose ancestry identifies with the Hispanic culture. The three main Hispanic groups in the United States are Cubans, Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans. Puerto Ricans are people who identify themselves as Hispanics of Puerto Rican origin, meaning they were either born in Puerto Rico, or have family ancestry that traces back to Puerto Rico. According to Lopez & Patten (2015), in 2013, Puerto Ricans were the second-largest Hispanic origin population living in the United States, accounting for 9.5%. This population continues to grow. In fact, between 1980 and 2013, the Puerto Rican population in the United States had increased by 56% (Lopez & Patten, 2015). Puerto Rican culture is unique, and quite complex. To gain knowledge and a better understanding of the Puerto Rican culture, I attended the Puerto Rican Festival held in Milwaukee, and conducted an interview with Melinda Nieves, a Puerto Rican woman living in Appleton. Through these experiences, I found that Puerto Rican culture is centered around language, family, and religion, as well as music and delicious food.

“Negocios”, a story from Junot Díaz’s drown, provides an indepth look into the life of an immigrant from the Dominican Republic trying to make a life for him and his family in the United States. Ramon is constantly faced with difficult challenges but he shows an amazing amount of determination to achieve his goal of providing his family with a better life.

Hartford is the home to the highest percentage (27%) of Puerto Ricans in the country (Cruz, 5). Nonetheless, Puerto Ricans still face myriad challenges with respect to the integration and acceptance of their culture in Hartford. Although the PR community is only two generations old, Puerto Ricans have managed to both organize and mobilize in this relatively short time (Cruz, 2). Puerto Ricans have focused closely on their ethnic identity because they viewed their incorporation into the political sphere occurring only by means of asserting their difference (Cruz, 10). They have made their mark on politics in Hartford through demographic growth, development of leadership in the community, and their

Pablo Camacho was one of my old family friend who lives in Puerto Rico, since that’s where my family’s from. He used to be my dad’s family accountant who ran all the numbers and did all the financial operations of the business. Since my dad moved away from the island, we still keep in touch because of how close they were. Therefore, I thought this was the perfect person to vex or ask him questions for my interview. I have to disclose that Puerto Rico’s primary language is not English and I had to translate this interview from Spanish. I did my best in translating everything and summarizing it.

In The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, a little girl from a Latino heritage is given birth to. Not literally, but in the sense of characterization. Esperanza is a fictional character made up by Cisneros to bring about sensitive, alert, and rich literature. She is the protagonist in the novel and is used to depict a female’s life growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. Cisneros creates the illusion that Esperanza is a real human being to communicate the struggles of growing up as a Latina immigrant in a modern world, by giving her a name, elaborating her thoughts and feelings, and illustrating her growth as a person through major events.

As stated previously, Cisneros' style in The House on Mango Street suggests to us that liberation can be achieved through an art form, rather than physically picking up and moving your residence. Esperanza overcomes her condition by creating the realm of literature, rather than the physical reality of another house in another time and place. In this way, she is able to distance herself from her community and family. But all the while, still holding on to her heritage and ethnicity. By affirming her own artistic ability, Esperanza is able to blend all of her dreams. Because of this we come to understand that one can achieve self-discovery and even independence through something so remote as literature. This is where I find Cisneros' influence the most powerful. I believe she is stressing a theme here, not just for Hispanics, but for all minorities as well. She lets them know that liberation can be achieved within several realms of the human experience.

In The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros creates the theme that when a young girl is growing up without role models and a community that doesn’t support her development, she will have uncertainty in her identity and will search for her way out of the endless cycle. Cisneros does this through the main character, Esperanza. Cisneros creatively weaves the uncertain identity though many of the vignettes, but the vignettes that have the strongest meaning are number one and four. In vignette one, “The House on Mango Street,” Esperanza describes the places that she’s lived before

In "A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood," Judith Cofer accomplishes three powerful achievements: she gives details on the stories of her family experiences, shows her family stories in a strong imaginative language, and points out how family stories can take over a person's life. This essay seems to be very tricky because she goes from one story to another. Cofer's claim would be very difficult to understand if she started with one story; instead, she should finish explaining the initial story before moving on to the next one. Instead, Cofer shows how a woman can potentially go crazy if her man mistreats her.

Another large component of Puerto Ricanness is Race. All of the different cultures that have throughout history combined to form Puerto Rico effect their nationality, history, lifestyles, traditions, music, and foods.

Esmeralda Santiago did an outstanding job creating multiple themes that brought the book all together and gave it a deeper meaning. One theme that I felt occurred the most often throughout the book was coming of age. But it seemed to be more than that, what I discovered that one theme was the development of a young girl to a woman, and also truths being revealed about yourself and finding out who you are as a person. The author depicts this theme throughout the book my telling us readers what Esmeralda, Negi, was thinking about a certain situation and how she felt about it. The author also does a great job of incorporating this theme in the memoir by showing at the end of the book how much Negi has gone through and how she has learned and grown from the experience. The characters and settings that are in the book are used to develop the theme by creating events in the settings that the characters, Esmeralda and her family, have to assess, react, and learn and develop from what happened. This is what, to me made the book so interesting and added to depth to what the author was trying to say. The theme in the book has definitely impacted me in some way. It made me realize that there are going to be difficult times in my life, but you can conquer them with persistence and passion. Also if you are perceived as small, weak, helpless, prove everyone wrong and show them what you can do. Be the best that you can be and that is all you can do in life. By doing so I feel as long as I try my best and never let anything get me down, I can do

Like many Puerto Ricans before me, I have questioned my cultural identity. We claim to be a commonwealth, a free associated state, but we are neither free nor a state. This is where our dilemma lies. What are we if not a state? What are we if not free? We are stuck in the middle, we have become a paradox, a contradiction. Now the question here lies: what- or better yet- who are we?

What's a common location that comes up in discussion when someone thinks of a destination to get away from all the hustle and bustle of the Main land of the United States? Normally Puerto Rico isn't too far away from conversation. Puerto Rico is a beautiful place with the perfect climate and many historical sites to take that getaway that you have always wanted. Today we will discuss major issues in/of Puerto Rico, the significance of this research and data sources, and lastly I will describe the data collected and research found during my inquiry on the region known as Puerto Rico

Empowered by a Loss of Innocence In the novel, When I Was Puerto Rican, Esmeralda Santiago is forced to loose her innocence at a younger age than most children; while that can be damaging to many adolescents, Esmeralda uses those experiences to mature and mold herself into the successful woman she becomes at the end of the novel. By forced responsibility, constantly moving houses, unwanted sexual experiences, becoming a senorita, and other specific instances, Esmeralda matures at a very young age. From this, she develops an incredible passion and drive for success and she ends up graduating from New York City’s Performing Arts High School, living in Boston, and attending Harvard University as a scholarship student (Iyer, 2008).

In the novel, “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros, the main character Esperanza has many positive influences on her life. Hardships do not define one’s life either in a mental or physical capacity. Throughout the novel, Esperanza’s grandmother, Marin, and Rosa Vargas enable her to overcome the hardships of becoming a woman.

In the book The House on Mango Street, author Sandra Cisneros presents a series of vignettes that involve a young girl, named Esperanza, growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. Esperanza Cordero is searching for a release from the low expectations and restrictions that Latino society often imposes on its young women. Cisneros draws on her own background to supply the reader with accurate views of Latino society today. In particular, Cisneros provides the chapters “Boys and Girls” and “Beautiful and Cruel” to portray Esperanza’s stages of growth from a questioning and curious girl to an independent woman. Altogether, “Boys and Girls” is not like “Beautiful and Cruel” because Cisneros reveals two different maturity levels in Esperanza;