When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago Lyrics
The Story So Far
Esmeralda Santiago moved to Brooklyn from Puerto Rico with her mother and several of her brothers and sisters when she was 13, leaving behind her father and life in the country. After being assigned to a class for kids with learning disabilities because she cannot speak English well, she decides that Brooklyn is not the place for her. When her family moves and she changes schools, she is given the chance to write her own ticket.
Characters:
Mami (Esmeralda's mother)
Esmeralda/Negi (the narrator and author)
Mr. Barone (guidance counselor)
Mr. Gatti and Mrs. Johnson (teachers)
A FEW DAYS LATER, MR. BARONE CALLED ME BACK TO HIS OFFICE.
“Well?” Tiny green flecks burned around the black pupils of his hazel eyes.
The night before, Mami had called us into the living room. On the television “fifty of America’s most beautiful girls” paraded in ruffled dresses before a tinsel waterfall. “Aren’t they lovely?” Mami murmured, as the girls, escorted by boys in uniform, floated by the camera, twirled, and disappeared behind a screen to the strains of a waltz and an announcer’s dramatic voice calling their names, ages, and states. Mami sat mesmerized through the whole pageant.
“I’d like to be a model,” I said to Mr. Barone. He stared at me, pulled his glasses down from
his forehead, looked at the papers inside the folder with my name on it, and glared. “A model?” His voice was gruff, as if he were more comfortable yelling at people than talking to them.
“I want to be on television.”
“Oh, then you want to be an actress,” in a tone that said this was only a slight improvement over my first career choice. We stared at one another for a few seconds. He pushed his glasses up to his forehead again and reached for a book on the shelf in back of him. “I only know of one school that trains actresses, but we’ve never sent them a student from here.”
Performing Arts, the write-up said, was an academic, as opposed to a vocational, public school that trained students wishing to pursue a career in theater, music, and dance.
“It says here that you have to audition.” He stood up and held the book closer to the faint gray light coming through the narrow window high on his wall. “Have you ever performed in front of an audience?”
“I was an announcer in my school show in Puerto Rico,” I said. “And I recite poetry. There, not here.”
He closed the book and held it against his chest. His right index finger thumped a rhythm on his lower lip. “Let me call them and find out exactly what you need to do. Then we can talk some more.” I left his office strangely happy, confident that some-
thing good had just happened, not knowing exactly what.
“I’M NOT AFRAID . . . I’M NOT AFRAID . . . I’M NOT AFRAID.”
Every day I walked home from school repeating those words. The broad streets and sidewalks that had impressed me so on the first day we had arrived had become as familiar as the dirt road from Macún to the highway. Only my curiosity about the people who lived behind these walls ended where the façades of the buildings opened into dark hallways or locked doors. Nothing good, I imagined, could be happening inside if so many locks had to be breached to go in or step out.
It was on these tense walks home from school that I decided I had to get out of Brooklyn. Mami had chosen this as our home, and just like every other time we’d moved, I’d had to go along with her because I was a child who had no choice. But I wasn’t willing to go along with her on this one.
“How can people live like this?” I shrieked once, desperate to run across a field, to feel grass under my feet instead of pavement.
“Like what?” Mami asked, looking around our apartment, the kitchen and living room crisscrossed with sagging lines of drying diapers and bedclothes.
“Everyone on top of each other. No room to do anything. No air.”
“Do you want to go back to Macún, to live like savages, with no electricity, no toilets . . .”
“At least you could step outside every day without somebody trying to kill you.”
“Ay, Negi, stop exaggerating!”
“I hate my life!” I yelled. “Then do something about it,” she yelled back. Until Mr. Barone showed me the listing for Performing
Arts High School, I hadn’t known what to do.
"The auditions are in less than a month. You have to learn a monologue, which you will perform in front of a panel. If you do well, and your grades here are good, you might get into the school.”
Mr. Barone took charge of preparing me for my audition to Performing Arts. He selected a speech from The Silver Cord, a play by Sidney Howard, first performed in 1926, but whose action took place in a New York drawing room circa 1905.
“Mr. Gatti, the English teacher,” he said, “will coach you. . . . And Mrs. Johnson will talk to you about what to wear and things like that.”
I was to play Christina, a young married woman confronting her mother-in-law. I learned the monologue phonetically from Mr. Gatti. It opened with “You belong to a type that’s very common in this country, Mrs. Phelps—a type of self-centered, self-pitying, son-devouring tigress, with unmentionable proclivities suppressed on the side.”
“We don’t have time to study the meaning of every word,” Mr. Gatti said. “Just make sure you pronounce every word correctly.”
Mrs. Johnson, who taught Home Economics, called me to her office.
“Is that how you enter a room?” she asked the minute I came in. “Try again, only this time, don’t barge in. Step in slowly, head up, back straight, a nice smile on your face. That’s it.”
I took a deep breath and waited. “Now sit. No, not like that. Don’t just plop down. Float down to the chair with your knees together.” She demonstrated, and I copied her. “That’s better. What do you do with your hands? No, don’t hold your chin like that; it’s not ladylike. Put your hands on your lap, and leave them there. Don’t use them so much when you talk.”
I sat stiff as a cutout while Mrs. Johnson and Mr. Barone asked me questions they thought the panel at Performing Arts would ask.
“Where are you from?” “Puerto Rico.” “No,” Mrs. Johnson said, “Porto Rico. Keep your r’s soft. Try again.” “Do you have any hobbies?” Mr. Barone asked. Now I knew what to answer. “I enjoy dancing and the movies.”
Esmeralda Santiago moved to Brooklyn from Puerto Rico with her mother and several of her brothers and sisters when she was 13, leaving behind her father and life in the country. After being assigned to a class for kids with learning disabilities because she cannot speak English well, she decides that Brooklyn is not the place for her. When her family moves and she changes schools, she is given the chance to write her own ticket.
Characters:
Mami (Esmeralda's mother)
Esmeralda/Negi (the narrator and author)
Mr. Barone (guidance counselor)
Mr. Gatti and Mrs. Johnson (teachers)
A FEW DAYS LATER, MR. BARONE CALLED ME BACK TO HIS OFFICE.
“Well?” Tiny green flecks burned around the black pupils of his hazel eyes.
The night before, Mami had called us into the living room. On the television “fifty of America’s most beautiful girls” paraded in ruffled dresses before a tinsel waterfall. “Aren’t they lovely?” Mami murmured, as the girls, escorted by boys in uniform, floated by the camera, twirled, and disappeared behind a screen to the strains of a waltz and an announcer’s dramatic voice calling their names, ages, and states. Mami sat mesmerized through the whole pageant.
“I’d like to be a model,” I said to Mr. Barone. He stared at me, pulled his glasses down from
his forehead, looked at the papers inside the folder with my name on it, and glared. “A model?” His voice was gruff, as if he were more comfortable yelling at people than talking to them.
“I want to be on television.”
“Oh, then you want to be an actress,” in a tone that said this was only a slight improvement over my first career choice. We stared at one another for a few seconds. He pushed his glasses up to his forehead again and reached for a book on the shelf in back of him. “I only know of one school that trains actresses, but we’ve never sent them a student from here.”
Performing Arts, the write-up said, was an academic, as opposed to a vocational, public school that trained students wishing to pursue a career in theater, music, and dance.
“It says here that you have to audition.” He stood up and held the book closer to the faint gray light coming through the narrow window high on his wall. “Have you ever performed in front of an audience?”
“I was an announcer in my school show in Puerto Rico,” I said. “And I recite poetry. There, not here.”
He closed the book and held it against his chest. His right index finger thumped a rhythm on his lower lip. “Let me call them and find out exactly what you need to do. Then we can talk some more.” I left his office strangely happy, confident that some-
thing good had just happened, not knowing exactly what.
“I’M NOT AFRAID . . . I’M NOT AFRAID . . . I’M NOT AFRAID.”
Every day I walked home from school repeating those words. The broad streets and sidewalks that had impressed me so on the first day we had arrived had become as familiar as the dirt road from Macún to the highway. Only my curiosity about the people who lived behind these walls ended where the façades of the buildings opened into dark hallways or locked doors. Nothing good, I imagined, could be happening inside if so many locks had to be breached to go in or step out.
It was on these tense walks home from school that I decided I had to get out of Brooklyn. Mami had chosen this as our home, and just like every other time we’d moved, I’d had to go along with her because I was a child who had no choice. But I wasn’t willing to go along with her on this one.
“How can people live like this?” I shrieked once, desperate to run across a field, to feel grass under my feet instead of pavement.
“Like what?” Mami asked, looking around our apartment, the kitchen and living room crisscrossed with sagging lines of drying diapers and bedclothes.
“Everyone on top of each other. No room to do anything. No air.”
“Do you want to go back to Macún, to live like savages, with no electricity, no toilets . . .”
“At least you could step outside every day without somebody trying to kill you.”
“Ay, Negi, stop exaggerating!”
“I hate my life!” I yelled. “Then do something about it,” she yelled back. Until Mr. Barone showed me the listing for Performing
Arts High School, I hadn’t known what to do.
"The auditions are in less than a month. You have to learn a monologue, which you will perform in front of a panel. If you do well, and your grades here are good, you might get into the school.”
Mr. Barone took charge of preparing me for my audition to Performing Arts. He selected a speech from The Silver Cord, a play by Sidney Howard, first performed in 1926, but whose action took place in a New York drawing room circa 1905.
“Mr. Gatti, the English teacher,” he said, “will coach you. . . . And Mrs. Johnson will talk to you about what to wear and things like that.”
I was to play Christina, a young married woman confronting her mother-in-law. I learned the monologue phonetically from Mr. Gatti. It opened with “You belong to a type that’s very common in this country, Mrs. Phelps—a type of self-centered, self-pitying, son-devouring tigress, with unmentionable proclivities suppressed on the side.”
“We don’t have time to study the meaning of every word,” Mr. Gatti said. “Just make sure you pronounce every word correctly.”
Mrs. Johnson, who taught Home Economics, called me to her office.
“Is that how you enter a room?” she asked the minute I came in. “Try again, only this time, don’t barge in. Step in slowly, head up, back straight, a nice smile on your face. That’s it.”
I took a deep breath and waited. “Now sit. No, not like that. Don’t just plop down. Float down to the chair with your knees together.” She demonstrated, and I copied her. “That’s better. What do you do with your hands? No, don’t hold your chin like that; it’s not ladylike. Put your hands on your lap, and leave them there. Don’t use them so much when you talk.”
I sat stiff as a cutout while Mrs. Johnson and Mr. Barone asked me questions they thought the panel at Performing Arts would ask.
“Where are you from?” “Puerto Rico.” “No,” Mrs. Johnson said, “Porto Rico. Keep your r’s soft. Try again.” “Do you have any hobbies?” Mr. Barone asked. Now I knew what to answer. “I enjoy dancing and the movies.”