Vera’s moving book — her second after If i Bring you Roses — examines the fresh new forces one added you to family relations to depart the beloved homeland and you may try to find another type of begin in a not known and you can unwelcoming homes
Marisel Vera shines a white with the a tiny-known facet of You.S. records on Preference Off Glucose. In the turn of the twentieth century, lots of people from the recently received region from Puerto Rico moved halfway international be effective into the sugarcane ranches for the Their state.
To know as to why Vicente Vega, their partner Valentina and you can Vicente’s half of-cousin Raulito make the thorough journey to The state, Vera (that is out-of Puerto Rican community) very first turns this new clock back into the middle-19th century, when the Foreign language nonetheless influenced along the Caribbean area. Thraldom stays court (it can perhaps not end up to 1873), and you will extreme impoverishment is actually general. Even after abolition, of several toward area are not any better than serfs, life “la vida de perro.” (Foreign language is actually interwoven on the text.) In contrast, Vicente’s parent are a moderately better-out-of proprietor out-of a coffees plantation regarding the mountainous region of Utuado. Although family’s fortunes decline over the years. By the point Vicente develops so you can penis, he or she is simple farmers, regardless if he or she is better off compared to the peones whom “was lucky if they eat once a day.”
The newest smitten girl “prepared to own love and you may thrill” gets right up their own close dreams of Paris to help you a beneficial de casa” toward farm is absolutely nothing instance getting a housewife in the Ponce. Nevertheless, she vows so you’re able to “devote herself so you’re able to their particular loved ones and set away the childish desires,” as the she produces when you look at the a page so you can her sis Elena after their particular marriage. Their lifetime, regardless of if tough, is not instead the delights. Something transform if the You.S. ousts the new Spanish into the 1898. Whenever Hurricane Ciriaco attacks a year later, brand new crisis was enormous. Brand new useless American approach to dealing with drama are depressingly comparable into the bungled reaction to Hurricane Maria more a beneficial century later on.
That is most in control about region is obvious during the a brief world that takes place after Raulito are sentenced to three several years of hard labor to possess a minor offense
Vicente, Valentina and you can Raulito create a great wrenching decision to exit Puerto Rico about and you may look for a better lives in other places. However the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association’s intends to the brand new puertorriquenos confirm blank. Rather than ped shanties. Earnings is paid-in scrip unlike bucks. The brand new universities these people were told their pupils you can expect to sit-in do not are present. It’s a common yet devastating facts regarding exploitation, because the Puerto Ricans discover obtained traded you to bleak situation for an alternate which is somehow even worse, where perhaps the quick comforts from home was in fact stripped out.
Vera’s really-investigated book is actually a valuable lesson inside the Puerto Rican records and you will an eye-starting glimpse at unappealing reality about brand new You.S.is the reason have a tendency to skipped record due to the fact a great colonial strength. It tale interrogates the latest surprising associations anywhere between a couple of outposts of the state’s imperial empire. Hawaii’s individual complex reputation for colonization isn’t looked in the same in depth ways as it is Puerto Rico’s, however, we have a sense of the disparate pushes at your workplace regarding Polynesian archipelago. Specialists for example Valentina and you can Vicente live-in shacks after filled of the Portuguese sugarcane professionals and you may functions near to Japanese immigrants, exactly who it look at having suspicion. The new sheriff pours brand new courtroom in the event a class away from pineapple juices “delivered to him specifically by the their friend Dole, who owns the biggest amolatina app pineapple plantation in most off The state.”
But Vera provides a more necessary corrective so you’re able to record. The book is also the storyline of a young woman’s losings regarding innocence, just like the Valentina reduced sheds their girlish naivete, and you may a succession from tragedies and challenges hone her to the an effective harder, smaller psychological person. And there is a bona fide and you will tragic sense of loss certainly one of brand new immigrants after they get to The state. “We skip Puerto Rico and you will Ponce…and also the new hill into the Utuado,” Valentina writes for the a page to help you their unique sis, which she’s got perhaps not viewed since she is ents he commonly “never tune in to coquis again” before informing himself one to “it was ridiculous so you can shout more than frogs.”