Esmeralda Santiago

"My own ancestors. I come from poor, landless peasants who left no records. And so I began to read the story of Puerto Rico, and the more I read the story the more I realized I would never find my own ancestors, but I could make my imaginary ancestors. And so the book emerges as a result of my trying to create them, to create the people that might have been."

"At a certain point, I gave up on the idea that I’m not enough for other people…You are enough for you if you believe that you are enough for you. Whatever they say — you’re not Latina enough, or feminine enough or smart enough, you know ... just say ‘fuck you.’ That’s their problem."

"I thought, 'I have been through this process before’…When I was 13 years old I came from Puerto Rico to the United States not knowing any English. What I did at that time was I went to the public library, and I would go to the children’s book section where there would be alphabet books and everything would be illustrated. So it was very easy to connect the words to the images. I said, ‘I’m just going to do the same thing. If I did it once before, I can do it again.’"

"How can you know what you're capable of if you don't embrace the unknown?"

"“I learned you pay for your happiness. That's why I don't expect to be happy all the time. I'd rather be surprised by one moment every so often to remind me that joy is possible, even if I have to pay for it later.”"

"“I didn’t leave Puerto Rico. A mí me sacaron,” she tells me, referring to her exodus from Puerto Rico as a girl from San Juan. “I think nobody would prefer to leave that way.”"

"Edmaris Carazo, who the author says is one of her favorite talents from Puerto Rico at the moment...For Santiago, the impetus to develop a new tradition of Puerto Rican authors comes from her beginnings in literature, back in her childhood when she spent time in the backyard of a family member’s house in el campo. There, she listened to relatives tell trovas – oral tradition in rhyme. She also credits her dad’s love for poetry and Puerto Rican authors Julia de Burgos, Manuel Alonso, and Luis Palés Matos with sparking her interest."

"Through her work, she has shown a remarkable commitment to maintaining the stories of Puerto Rico in boricua hands. “If we preserve our stories, then they belong to us,” she says."

"For me, the person I was becoming when we left was erased, and another one was created."

"I wondered if men ever talked like this, if their sorrows ever spilled into these secret cadences."

"What doesn't kill you, makes you fat."

"(What books or authors have most inspired you? What books did you read while working on Ordinary Girls?) JD: Definitely Esmeralda Santiago’s When I Was Puerto Rican. It was one of the very first times I saw myself in a book written in English. Before then, to me, it seemed like Puerto Ricans didn’t even exist in American publishing. As a kid, I went to the library and everything the librarian handed me were books written by white people about white people — mostly by white men. When I Was Puerto Rican still feels relevant and iconic for me."

"Esmeralda Santiago has defined the literature of the Puerto Rican diaspora."