This was very cool to read, but difficult to review. I guess it’s because she’s a woman of color…. they called her Negi in her family, because they found her dark, which kinda means Blackie or Black girl, negra would be Black girl, although some of her family was more pale; Hispanic heritage people tend to be more mixed and fluid about color than classic North Americans, although obviously it’s *Latin* America because it was colonized by Europeans too…. Negi was an affectionate term, though; I almost thought she was white Latina from looking at her until at the end I read that that’s not how Americans perceived her…. But anyway, yeah, she’s from the imperial territory of Puerto Rico, lol—she doesn’t Chomsky you with the theory, just the experience of how they were not considered the same or equal; and she wasn’t white…. Although it’s not the only, or even the main, thing she talks about. She’s a woman of color, but the emphasis is on being a woman, or, because she’s a child, ‘almost a woman’, casi señorita….

And there’s certainly a lot to be knocked over by, waves and waves of gender and conflict, waves of expectations and customs and conformity, although again it’s not like she’s Marilyn Frye or even Simone de Beauvoir, angry or sarcastic or whatever, (not that that has to necessarily be always bad). It’s hard to review though. At one point I was going to write about her parents’ marriage, and the way people punish each other, the way I get you to treat me even more poorly to punish you for treating me a way I don’t like…. But it’s odd because she’s a woman of color. Gender roles are not timeless or borderless, but nevertheless gender lends itself to a certain universalism because woman and man are not ethnic terms; even the animals some of us eat have gender. But for myself and people like me, when we imagine a universal or quasi-universal gendered scenario, we basically imagine white people, you know. So I don’t know. Of course, sometimes things ARE less different than we might hastily assume; baby boomer Puerto Ricans were told to be ‘well behaved’ by their elders, and rebelled against being repressed or whatever; they weren’t a universally sexually loose or non-uptight Hispanic heritage people like we might so easily assume. But I don’t know. You read most Anglo psychology books, for example, and the people tend to have Anglo names and are basically assumed to be white, and in that larger context we try to wrestle with gender and say what The Girl and The Guy or This Guy and That Girl want, behave, say, do, etc, and it’s like, I don’t know. Better a functional Anglo than a psycho one; I don’t want to press the point too far, but how do you tackle gender without the invisible context of Anglo-ness?

I really don’t know what to say about it, even after having read someone feel their own way through the forest, or across the sea, I guess, lol.

The story of a young girl who leaves Puerto Rico for New York's tenements and a chance for success.

"Con la musica por dentro"...with the music inside...perfectly describes Negi the main protagonist in Esmeralda's Santiago's memoir When I Was Puerto Rican. I read this one with as a buddy read with @idleutopia_reads and some other awesome bookstagrammers and it couldn't have come at a more perfect time.

From the moment I started reading this I knew that Negi and I shared the same spirit: the spirit of a fighter, one who questions everything, one who challenges authority and makes her own rules and her own space in an uber masculine world that seeks to break you. No matter what tragedy happened, she just pushed through and it fueled her determination to save herself from her circumstances. My mother used to tell me I had " la musica por dentro" and I never understood what it meant. All I knew was that I was sensitive to people's pain but I was also a rebel who could not be tamed or silenced.

There are books that come into your life that give you glimpses of your younger self, your journey, your homeland and more importantly your beloved culture and ancestry. Representation in books is far and in between but this one spoke to me deeply on a visceral level. It transported me to Puerto Rico and places that I loved to visit as little girl. It brought back memories of my grandparents and it also gave me snippets of what my mother's life was like when she first moved to NYC. I gave me some new history about my neighborhood and made me feel more connected to my Puerto Rican roots. It gave me new insight into my own parents' experiences and it provided validation for their own migration stories.

This book touched me in so many ways that I can't help but cry and smile at the same time. The little girl in me that was just like Negi has found reconciliation and newfound pride in the pages. Negi's story is one that I will revisit over and over because it reminded me that the undying fire that lives inside of me burns for a reason. I am reminded who I fight for every day. Thank you Esmeralda Santiago for sharing your life with the world. I am forever grateful. ( )

Emerald writes about her transition to life in the United States, while enduring racism within her community. This would be interesting to compare and contrast with other post-modern perspectives.

Enjoyable Read

A vivid well told memoir and educational. It gave me an inside glimpse into a life of a wonderful Puerto Rican writer. You don't have to be Puerto Rican to enjoy reading this. ( )