Memoir Project #2

October 14, 2008

Passage Explication Assignment

"Across the aisle, Mami's eyes were misty. She stretched her fingers toward mine, and we held hands as the plane rose above the clouds. Neither one of us could have known what lay ahead. For her it began as an adventure and turned out to have more twists and turns than she expected or knew how to handle. For me, the person I was becoming when we left was erased, and another one was created. The Puerto Rican jíbara who longed for the green quiet of a tropical afternoon was to become a hybrid who would never forgive the uprooting." (209)

In this passage, Esmeralda Santiago suggests that even though being seen as a jíbara in Puerto Rico is a morbid insult, she would have much rather preferred to have lived in Puerto Rico and fit in with a group of people like her (poor and living off whatever means they could), then have moved to New York, which was filled with opportunity, and lose her identity forever. After moving to New York, Santiago would never fully fit in with either the Americans or Puerto Ricans: for the Americans a barrier, perhaps speaking English or racism, would always be surrounding her, and because she was "Americanized" she would never be like her Puerto Rican friends back home who still lived without electricity.

Having lost her identity, Santiago expresses her tone of regret and nostalgia through diction and syntax. Using "eyes were misty" to represent the emotional connection Santiago had when leaving her country, and the powerful phrases, "never forgive" along with "the person I was becoming… was erased" illustrating that she would never learn to accept the changes her mother put her through, clearly demonstrates Santiago's emotional attachment to the country she received her identity from. In the small passage, Santiago reveals what the audience wanted to know about her the entire memoir: her feelings of being ripped out of the only place she felt safe in, Puerto Rico. Despite the fact that New York gave Santiago the privilege of attending Harvard University, she "be[came] a hybrid who would never forgive the uprooting" that never allowed her to understand her true Puerto Rican identity.

Through her writing, Santiago is able to look back at this crossroad in her life and meditate on how different her life would have been if decisions had been differently. In the passage, once Santiago realizes her identity is being torn away from her she undergoes a transition on life. In her passage she shows this by changing her tone from emotional to impactful. Before the line, "Neither one of us could have known what lay ahead," Santiago's tone is emotional, almost naïve: "we held hands," "the plane rose above the clouds;" and after her tone switches to bitter: "more twists and turns that she… knew how to handle," "the person I was becoming… was erased, and another one was created," and "The Puerto Rican jíbara… would never forgive the uprooting." This passage divides the book into two halves: the happier half where Santiago is poor, but is comfortable with who she is; and the second half where Santiago is resentful of coming to the US, but succeeds more than she ever would in Puerto Rico. Santiago's message is that, like her, life for most foreigners in the United States will be bittersweet: leaving behind a part of you that you know you will never again get back (your country's way of life and customs), but receiving a better opportunity in a country you will never fully be a part of.