When I Was Puerto Rican is Esmeralda Santiago’s memoir of growing up and coming of age in rural Puerto Rico and ultimately New York. I absolutely flew through this engrossing memoir, and especially loved Santiago’s spunky young self, always asking questions. This book deals with her parents’ fraught relationship and its impact on her, as well as with her sense of identity as she moves between different cultural contexts, both within Puerto Rico and finally in moving to New York. The ending of this book came so suddenly that I felt somewhat unmoored, dropped without warning out of her life. But Santiago has two more memoirs that I think follow her later into her life, so I’m definitely interested to check those out and experience her story a little longer.⁣⁣⁣