Esmeralda Santiago’s memoir ‘When I was Puerto Rican’ tells the story of a girl who tries to survive against all odds. Everything revolved around her, from her family to moving to a different society, which drove her to question where she belonged. Despite her achieving outside success in Brooklyn, the juxtaposition brings alone cultural loss when she does not associate herself with a traditionally expected Puerto Rican behavior. However, identity, especially in the cultural aspect, does not just encompass ethnic heritage and customs. Negi struggles to find solid ground when parts of it sound unreliable and do not make sense. While culture, ethnicity, and traditions play a vital role in self-realization, self-identity is personified and unique as one’s fingerprints, representing one’s connection to others.
Her identity realization struggles are first experienced when she was young upon questioning her Papi about the soul. Her father’s answers on it gave a sense of self-doubt, stating that she experienced things her father did not. ‘The doubt in his voice let me know I knew something he did not because my soul traveled all the time, and it appeared he never did.’ (Santiago, 50). She claims that she feels her soul walking beside and watching her. When she feels her Papi does not experience the same things she does, it commences her journey of trying to figure out her identity. The case of her outward soul questioning and believing her soul could be walking beside her depicts the commencement of her identity split. A typical fact conceptualizes the soul as never departing, especially when one is alive. However, in this case, when the two are considered separate, there is a conflict in what one thinks or visualizes of themselves.
For the Puerto Ricans, a jibaro is one patriotic person who celebrates aspects of music, art or even images related to Puerto Rico. It is a mandatory requirement for all grade levels to read and familiarize themselves with the jibaros. Jibaros’ songs depicted hardships and struggles, but the reward was a life of independence which gave a deeply rooted aspect of nationalism. Coming from a family where it was a routine to listen to radio programs about the jibaros, Negi grew up wanting to like them. However, Mami constantly told her she could not be a jibaro because she was city-born (Santiago, 17). She recalls being scolded for even trying to be a jibaro wondering why her family did live like them but were not considered jibaros. That sense of distinction could not be easily fathomed or understood as a child. In a place where many people did not celebrate the patriots, she viewed it as hypocritical to honor those looked down on (Santiago, 18).
Identity and self-realization should not be a switch one pull to fit into different situational circumstances. It should be a constant that defines one throughout all walks of life. For Negi, however, when at school, she has to constantly navigate her feelings in diverse situations. It happened more because she differed with the school rules, noting that her family structure was the opposite. She was expected to be quiet and not yell, which often happened at her house. She went home with a torn uniform and some bruises, and Mami forbids her from fighting at school. It was a clear sense of conflict since she was never clearly banned from fighting with her siblings, which often happened (Santiago, 34). Doing different things in different settings expanded her conflict, fueling her identity crisis (Litchart, 1)
In one of her father-daughter moments, she asks her Papi what sin is. In his explanation, her father mentions that they are Catholics but not very good ones. He also claims that saying God’s name in vain is a sin, yet many people do it. She is conflicted about where her religious stand is since her father does mention that they believe in God and are Catholics but do not consider themselves are very religious. A plain black and white explanation, especially to a child, is either right or wrong with no in-between for easier understanding. Although, when the answers do not give concise answers, the child is conflicted about what to believe.
As she narrates, Negi was just a nickname while her real name Esmeralda was seldom used, a truth she did not know. While she asks questions about if other people have handles, she discovers that most do not use their nicknames daily, unlike her. It was a weird revelation as she wondered why people need nicknames while they have their real names.
‘It seemed complicated as if we were two people, one who was loved and the official one who, I assumed, was not.’ (Santiago, 19).
Her concerns echo her split identity crisis, in which she did not know if to behave as Negi, the dark child in the family, or Esmeralda, as the government knew her or people who did not know her too well. What would happen if both of these groups happened to be in a common setting; would she be Negi or Esmeralda?
We see identity being hinted at again when Negi moves to Brooklyn. In a way, she was to switch things up and try to navigate a more intense social stage of being in a public school in a different country. The diverse ethnic groups, social regards, and way of life of her new town heightened her crisis. In her case, it was not a friendly situation, nor was it a safe space for the new learner from Puerto Rico (Gonzalez, 6).
In Performing Arts High School, she is advised to adopt an American and English persona whose purpose was to humor the audience. She gives it a shot despite having no experience or intelligible monologue of a middle-aged mother-in-law from the twentieth century who is over-possessive. The audition or the character was not a reflection of Negi’s personality, yet he did not skip a beat wanting to go for it. Albeit, she was able to do the monologue. Her willingness to try and get on with it revealed her expertise in code-switching when t came to different personalities at different times and situations. Her way of adapting to new identities as per her current environment or company did play its part in her crisis.
Identity and its realization does not encompass belonging to a certain ethnicity or geographical location only but also has to deal with one’s true personality and character. When these two are in conflict or one assumes another person’s identity, a crisis begins. For Negi, her identity crisis began at home at a tender age. While charity begins at home, the people close to you play a vital role in shaping character and personalities, whether by emulating role models or keeping off. However, as earlier pointed out, identity is unique to an individual, just as fingerprints.
References
LitCharts. “Identity Theme in When I Was Puerto Rican.” LitCharts, 2022, www.litcharts.com/lit/when-i-was-puerto-rican/themes/identity
López-González, Crescencio, and Makayla Steele. TiTle: Emancipating the Self: The (Un)Becoming of Esmeralda Santiago’s Identity Letras Hispanas. 2018.
Santiago, Esmeralda. When I Was Puerto Rican. Marco Book Company, 2009.
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