Esmeralda Santiago facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

Quick facts for kids Esmeralda Santiago
Santiago at the 2023 Texas Book Festival.
Born	(1948-05-17)May 17, 1948 San Juan, Puerto Rico
Occupation	writer, actress
Nationality	Puerto Rican
Alma mater	Sarah Lawrence College, Harvard University
Notable works	When I Was Puerto Rican, Almost a Woman, The Turkish Lover, Conquistadora
Spouse	Frank Cantor
Children	Lucas Cantor
Signature

Esmeralda Santiago (born May 17, 1948) is a Puerto Rican author. She is well-known for writing true stories about her own life, called memoirs. Her books often explore what it's like to be a Latina in the United States. She also writes about the experience of fitting into a new culture while keeping your own.

About Esmeralda Santiago
- Her Health Journey
Her Books
Her Impact
See also

About Esmeralda Santiago

Esmeralda Santiago was born in a small neighborhood called Macún in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico. She was the oldest of eleven children. Her family lived in the countryside and came from a background of farmers.

In 1961, when she was 13 years old, Esmeralda moved to the United States. She went to junior high school in Brooklyn, New York City. She learned English in just two years! After that, she attended the famous Performing Arts High School in New York City.

After high school, Esmeralda worked different jobs for eight years. Then, she earned a full scholarship to Harvard University. She graduated from Harvard in 1976 with high honors. She continued her studies at Sarah Lawrence College, where she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1992.

Esmeralda met and married Frank Cantor before she finished her studies. Together, they started a film and media company called Cantomedia. This company has won many awards for its documentaries. Esmeralda Santiago and her husband live in Westchester County, New York.

Her Health Journey

In 2008, Esmeralda Santiago had a stroke. This affected a part of her brain that controls reading and writing. Suddenly, she couldn't read or write in either Spanish, her first language, or English.

Esmeralda had to relearn how to read and write English, just like she did when she was 13. She used children's books with pictures to help her brain connect words to images. This helped her learn to read again.

Today, her reading and writing skills are still not fully recovered. When she had the stroke, she was writing a novel called Conquistadora. Her main goal was to finish it. She improved enough to complete her novel. However, she couldn't translate it into Spanish herself. Esmeralda continues to write today. She can write about 300 words a day now, compared to 1000 words a day before her stroke. Her journey of relearning language has been studied by doctors. It shows how strong and determined she is.

Her Books

Esmeralda Santiago's books often share her personal experiences. She writes about growing up and finding her identity.

When I Was Puerto Rican

When I Was Puerto Rican was published in 1993. It's a memoir about Esmeralda's childhood. The book tells her story from when she was very young until she left Puerto Rico at age 13. She writes about growing up with American ideas that sometimes clashed with her Puerto Rican culture. The book highlights family relationships, food, and what it was like to grow up in Puerto Rico.

After graduating from Harvard University, Esmeralda returned to Puerto Rico to work. She felt a bit out of place. Some Puerto Ricans thought she was too Americanized. At the same time, some Americans treated her differently because she was Puerto Rican. It was also hard for her to find a job, like other educated women in Puerto Rico.

Esmeralda decided to return to the United States. She started publishing short stories and essays in local newspapers. An editor in the United States encouraged her to write When I Was Puerto Rican. Her writing helps readers understand what it's like to experience both Puerto Rican and American cultures.

Esmeralda has said that she writes for women. She wants to show the challenges women face in Puerto Rican culture, both in the United States and on the island. In When I Was Puerto Rican, she shares her own experiences with unfair treatment. This helps other women who have faced similar situations feel understood.

Almost a Woman

Almost a Woman was published in 1998. It continues Esmeralda's story from When I Was Puerto Rican. This book covers her teenage years in the United States. The main character, Negi, faces questions about who she is. She is also trying to fit into a new culture after moving from Puerto Rico to Brooklyn, New York.

Negi has to decide how she wants her family and society to see her. She thinks about how much of her identity will be Puerto Rican and how much will be American. Learning English is her first step in bridging the gap between her Puerto Rican upbringing and her American school. Once she can speak English, her cultural identity becomes more flexible.

Santiago shows the journey of Puerto Rican women living in the United States as they balance cultural identities. In one scene, Negi performs in a play and celebrates with her American castmates. She sees her parents far away and notices their cultural differences. She also sees the differences between herself and her castmates. Like many children of immigrants, Negi feels like she's in between two worlds. She is not fully Puerto Rican to her family, but not fully American to her classmates. This "in-between" feeling shows her journey of acculturation. She embodies both cultures, yet feels like she belongs to neither completely. While this experience is common for immigrants, there isn't much literature about it. Santiago's writing helps to popularize the challenges of acculturation for daughters of Puerto Rican immigrants.

The Turkish Lover

The Turkish Lover, published in 2004, tells the story of Santiago's challenging relationship with a Turkish filmmaker named Ulvi. This memoir picks up where Almost a Woman ends. Negi leaves her mother's home to be with Ulvi.

Through Ulvi's influence, Negi, who Ulvi calls "Chiquita," slowly loses parts of her Puerto Rican identity. By the end of their eight-year relationship, Chiquita no longer recognizes modern Puerto Rican pop culture. She starts attending Harvard University and begins to discuss and defend political topics, including issues about Puerto Rico.

Chiquita then travels back to Puerto Rico. She is surprised by how much the natural beauty has been replaced by big stores and fast-food chains. The feeling of being separated from Puerto Rico becomes clear to her. In this book, the narration changes from third-person to first-person. Santiago takes ownership of the main character for the first time in her memoirs. She describes the feeling of truly becoming herself and feeling strong in her identity. As she claims her own identity, she also breaks free from Ulvi. She graduates from Harvard University with high honors.

The Turkish Lover is special because Santiago claims the main character as herself. It also shows how the main character goes by different names throughout the story. This final memoir is about her taking back her identity. It shows the ups and downs of her journey to fit into a new culture and her difficult relationship. In the end, the main character, now called 'Santiago,' is the same person who is writing the book. This shows her personal growth and how she finally defined herself.

Conquistadora

Conquistadora is a novel published in 2011. It tells the story of a character named Ana. Ana battles unfair expectations about gender, social class, and race in 19th-century Puerto Rico. Ana arrives in Puerto Rico at age 18, hoping to find power and money. Instead, she faces the harsh realities of slavery on her sugar plantation. She has to navigate a society where good and bad things exist together.

To write Conquistadora, Santiago did a lot of research into Puerto Rican history. She found that Puerto Rican records and books often didn't include stories of women, poor people, or enslaved people. Since Santiago came from a poor, rural family, she didn't have records of her own family's history. Conquistadora is an imagined story of what her family's past might have been like.

Like other Latino writers of her time, Santiago uses her writing to discover and understand her cultural identity. This is clear in how she explores her family's history. Santiago also writes about the terrible impact of slavery on the people of Puerto Rico. This is a topic that is often overlooked in popular books, as some people thought slavery in Puerto Rico was less harsh than in other places.

Other Works

A Doll for Navidades is a children's book by Santiago. It describes her childhood Christmas traditions. It includes her writing to the Three Magi to ask for a doll for Christmas. This book, unlike many of her others, is for children. But like her other works, it helps people understand Puerto Rican culture and experiences.
America's Dream, published in 1997, tells the story of a Puerto Rican woman's first experiences in the United States. It also explores her difficult relationship with her daughter.
Las Christmas is a collection of holiday stories by twenty-five Latino authors. Santiago helped edit this book.
Las Mamis: Favorite Latino Authors Remember Their Mothers is another collection of stories about authors' mothers, also edited by Santiago.
She also wrote screenplays for Beverly Hills Supper Club and Button, Button.
Santiago has contributed to other books, including Home: American Writers Remember Rooms of Their Own and Perspectivas Sobre Puerto Rico en Homenaje a Muñoz Rivera y Muñoz Marín, Fundacíón Luis Muñoz Marín.
Las Madres is a powerful book that describes the difficult hours and days after a storm. Its stories focus on the important idea of fighting against forgetting.

Her Impact

Esmeralda Santiago creates literature that focuses on women's experiences. She has helped open the door for more stories about the Latino experience told from a woman's point of view. Before the late 1980s, autobiographies by women were often ignored. This means there weren't many books to inspire Santiago's work.

Her use of the memoir style allows her to discuss women's roles in society, living with biculturalism (having two cultures), and bilingualism (speaking two languages). She writes from her own personal experience, which makes her work very powerful for readers. Also, as one of the first to write in this way, Santiago helped create a new path for exploring Puerto Rican and Latino identities in popular books. Her writing helps young Latine women and youth feel understood in their journeys to find their cultural identity.