When I Was Puerto Rican

“I push my cart away, toward the apple and pears of my adulthood, their nearly seedless ripeness predictable and bittersweet”

From the beginning, Esmeralda signals that she considers predictability and poignancy to be essential parts of adulthood. Guavas—the fruit she links to her childhood—are unpredictable in their color, ripeness, and taste. For Esmeralda, coming of age brings with it a degree of sadness and forgetting

“I lay on my pillow, whimpering, wondering how the termites knew I’d disobeyed my mother” 

Esmeralda’s mother tells her to stay out of her father’s way while he is working. Instead, he asks her to help. This leads to her carrying a piece of wood that is covered in termites that swarm and bite her. Esmeralda interprets misfortunes as punishments. In the beginning of the book, she, like most children, has little awareness of the fact that sometimes things happen without reason. It is also clear that she sees disobeying her mother as particularly worthy of punishment.

“Men, I was learning, were sinvergüenzas, which meant they had no shame and indulged in behavior that never failed to surprise women but caused them much suffering” 

Children, lacking analytical tools and experience, believe what they are taught. The women in Esmeralda’s life are teaching her that men are unreliable (yet predictable) and are primarily sources of pain to women. Esmeralda will not be able to change her mind without her mind being open, but most of her formative years and spent watching men let women down.