Friends, I have a pairing of two fantastic books for you!
But before I get into it, I need to set the stage.
My maternal family have their own lore, but my grandparents never really talked about anything that their parents went through or that came before their parents. I often wondered whether they were ashamed of their past and ancestry or if they truly just didn’t know. After reading Puerto Rico: A National History by Jorell Meléndez-Badillo and The Taste of Sugar by Marisel Vega, I think it's a bit of both.
My brother & I did a buddy read of Puerto Rico: A National History in an attempt to understand our history & our family better. I’m so glad that we did. Meléndez-Badillo covers everything from the first peoples of Puerto Rico to uprisings, colonization, anti-blackness, U.S. Imperialism, & more. We realized that the lack of information wasn’t just because our grandma never got past the 3rd grade, it was because many Puerto Ricans didn’t know how to read or write. We learned that our people were likely tricked into sharecropping-type work as jornaleros on sugar estates/plantations leaving them in poverty and struggling to provide substantial meals for their families. We learned of how ingrained anti-blackness was/is on the island. Suddenly, our upbringing made sense. We could see my mom and her siblings more clearly and begin to understand the cycles of mental abuse we all inherited through Spain and the U.S. colonizing Boriken.
I love that this book was written for the general public but also includes in-depth footnotes for those of us interested in this research. I’ll be using this for the books I’m in the process of writing!
Reading History is important but I also want to emphasize the power of pairing it with Historical Fiction, which is why I recommend that book alongside The Taste of Sugar. Vera brings the data and facts to life through storytelling. It is one thing to read about numbers of people suffering in poverty, it is another to read from their perspectives as jornaleros, jibaras, and péones on la finca surviving off of diets of plátanos and bananas and being “paid” in paper tickets to purchase spoiled meats at their plantation stores.
I love that Marisel Vera didn't shy away from including the struggles of Black Puerto Ricans, too. Their stories are often ignored or smoothed over by our own people as well as outsiders, so I appreciated this immensely.
Despite the heaviness of much of the story, I wanted more. I wanted to follow Vincente Vega and Valentina Sanchez into the turn of the century and see their descendents in the present day. That is my only critique of the book.
My hope is that you all will be inspired by this post to learn more about Puerto Rican History and U.S. Imperialism in order to understand what we all have inherited in the present. Both books are available in audiobook form, too. For those, like me, who aren’t really Spanish-speakers I recommend using translation apps on your phone and keeping track of the new words you learn!
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