Conformism in the Family

These two chapters had taken me forty-five years ago when I was growing in my native Puerto Rico when we didn't have time to think about trivial things of life. They were years in which the children played without malice; we were content to have mom, dad and one of the grandparents nearby. The story of Esmeralda in the chapter "Why women remain "jamona" was about a stage of her life as a girl in which she describes that day when her father takes her to her grandmother's house for a week.

She describes her crossing through public transport very popular in those years and his relationship with his father, which was very cold, and without much affection. Her odyssey while waiting for the next transport takes us to a very popular place in the towns of Puerto Rico that was called the "Plazas del Mercado."

Family problems

Here we find all kinds of services from butchers, bird nurseries, shoemakers, seamstresses, "botanicas" that is where they sell all kinds of religious figures, objects for Santeria, herbs, oils, lotions, rosaries, prayer books to saints, etc.

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everything related to the occult. There were markets for fruits, vegetables, medicinal plants and all kinds of edible roots. There were also all kinds of typical Puerto Rican food, which was what she could smell for the aroma of fried "alcapurrias." When she finishes her journey in the public car, she arrives at her grandmother's house and realizes that her father has very strange behavior and her mind began to worry about his way of saying goodbye.

It is here that she realizes that something is wrong in the conformism in which her loved ones live. A week after the adventure the day before at the mass, the day comes when her father supposedly is to pick her up as he had promised, but he never showed up. Three days later her pregnant mother came to pick her up, and by the conversation between her mom and grandma, she is listening about the problems that are surfacing in her family and that she had not noticed nor understood in her young mind. From this moment she analyzes the pain her mother and grandmother are feeling for the disappearance of her father without apparent reason (although they do know the cause).

Then is when she remembers the word "jamona" and it's meaning and came to a conclusion, that it is better to be "jamona" than to live suffering from the lack of love and the lack of respect of her father towards her family. She felt a feeling of hate towards father for the suffering of her mother and recognizes that it is better to stay "jamona" than to be holding this kind of shame from a man.

Esmeralda's trasformation

In the chapter "Dreams of a Better Life," Esmeralda ends her child's stage to become a "Senorita," which is the most critical stage, so to speak, in which the girls begin to see their bodies change and menstruation comes for the first time. Her father lets her know that this change is about to happen because she will turn thirteen and turn her into a "teenager." With this change come situations between her parents that force her to be part of the separation of these and the cold and insensitive feeling on the part of her father is evident.

In the last stanza of this chapter, "The Puerto Rican Jibara who longed for the green quiet of a tropical afternoon was to become a hybrid who would never forgive the uprooting," we see her the outcome of her life as a child victim of her adults who against their will. Having to leave the place they loved and remembered, as the place where they felt safe to move to a different unknown place was devastating for her. The comparison that she uses in the term of hybrid is that after being an average and ordinary person suddenly she is to be plunged into a depression as a result of the bad choices of her parents with different ways of thinking. Hispanic families are very supportive of the family unit and when for some reason they separate they disintegrate entirely. Esmeralda was in the "eye of the hurricane" helpless, sad; missing her days as a little girl.