Эсмеральда Сантьяго: Пуэрторикандық жазушының өмірі мен шығармалары

Puerto Rican writer

Esmeralda Santiago (born May 17, 1948) is a Puerto Rican author known for her narrative memoirs and trans cultural writing. Her impact extends beyond cultivating narratives as she paves the way for more coming of age stories about being a Latina in the United States, alongside navigating cultural dissonance through acculturation.

Santiago was born on May 17, 1948, in the Macún neighborhood of Toa Baja, Puerto Rico. Upon graduating, Santiago attended community college and worked various jobs for eight years. After, she earned a full scholarship from Harvard, where she transferred and received her undergraduate degree and graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1976. Her symptoms led her to believe she possibly suffered from a stroke, and after a doctor's visit and tests, her suspicions became confirmed. The stroke affected the Wernicke's area of the brain and made her unable to read and write in both Spanish, her native language, and English. Santiago relearned how to read and write English, as she did when she learned at age 13. Children's books with illustrations helped Santiago connect words to the images, teaching her brain to read again. Today, her reading and writing ability remains partially unrecovered. Santiago extends upon her memoir When I was Puerto Rican and continues from her late childhood through adolescence in the United States. Santiago demonstrates the plight of Puerto Rican women living in the United States as they battle cultural identities.

The Turkish Lover, published in 2004, illustrates Santiago's love affair with a Turkish film maker, Ulvi, and documents its abusive aspects. The memoir picks up where Almost a Woman leaves off, and Negi escapes from her mother's home to run away with Ulvi. Ana arrives in Puerto Rico at the age of 18 in search of power and money but instead faces the harsh realities of slavery on her sugar plantation. She becomes forced to navigate a society in which morality and immorality exist cohesively. In writing Conquistadora, Santiago researched and explored Puerto Rican history extensively. Puerto Rican records and literature did not include narratives of women, the economically disadvantaged or enslaved peoples. Coming from a poor, rural family, Santiago did not have records of her family's history, and Conquistadora is an imagined example of what her history could have been. Santiago also touches on the devastating impact of slavery on the people of Puerto Rico; something often glanced over by popular literature as some considered slavery in Puerto Rico to be less severe than in other nations. Unlike many of her other pieces, the book is catered towards children but like her other pieces, it brings greater societal awareness to Puerto Rican culture and experiences. Las Christmas, a collection of stories about the holidays by twenty five Latinx authors, was edited by Santiago. Las Mamis: Favorite Latino Authors Remember Their Mothers is a collection of stories about author's mothers and was edited by Santiago. The screenplays Beverly Hills Supper Club and Button, Button. Santiago is a contributor to the anthologies 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.

Santiago creates feminist literature that is catered towards women, promote CP in High Schools paving the way for more women centered narratives of the Latine experience. Autobiographies done by women were ignored until the late 1980's, meaning that not many pieces existed to inspire Santiago's work. Her use of the autobiographical, memoir like, format allows for discussions of women's societal gender role, biculturalism and bilingualism from a place of personal experience, making her work even more impactful on the reader. Additionally, as one of the first to write in this format, Santiago paved the way for exploring Puerto Rican and Latine identities in popular literature. Her writing allows more young, Latine, women and youth to feel justified in their journeys for cultural self identification and fulfillment.