Vera’s swinging novel — their second once If i Bring you Flowers — explores this new forces one to added that relatives to go away the dear homeland and you may choose a new begin in an as yet not known and you can unwelcoming home

Marisel Vera stands out a white with the a little-known part of You.S. history regarding Preference Of Glucose. At change of your own 20th century, huge numbers of people in the has just received territory of Puerto Rico moved halfway worldwide to your workplace to your sugarcane plantations in The state.

To learn as to why Vicente Vega, his wife Valentina and you may Vicente’s half-cousin Raulito result in the arduous travel to The state, Vera (who’s out of Puerto Rican lifestyle) basic converts the brand new time clock back to new middle-19th century, if Language still governed along the Caribbean area. Slavery remains courtroom (it could perhaps not end until 1873), and you will extreme impoverishment was systemic. Despite abolition, many on the island are not any a lot better than serfs, way of life “la vida de perro.” (Foreign language is actually interwoven on text message.) Conversely, Vicente’s daddy is a slightly really-of proprietor out of a java plantation about mountainous region of Utuado. Nevertheless family members’ luck decline typically. By the point Vicente expands to manhood, he or she is modest growers, whether or not he could be best off compared to peones exactly who “was lucky when they consume daily.”

The latest smitten girl “wishing getting relationship and you may thrill” provides upwards their particular romantic dreams of Paris so you can an excellent de- casa” towards the farm is absolutely nothing eg becoming a housewife when you look at the Ponce. However, she vows in order to “invest by herself so you can their members of the family and place away all of the childish fantasies,” due to the fact she writes in the a letter so you’re able to her sister Elena once their unique matrimony. Their lifetime, no matter if hard, isn’t as opposed to their pleasures. Things alter in the event that You.S. ousts this new Foreign language when you look at the 1898. Whenever Hurricane Ciriaco strikes a year later, the brand new emergency was immense. This new ineffective Western approach to handling the crisis are depressingly comparable on bungled a reaction to Hurricane Maria over good century after.

Who is really in charge on the region is obvious inside a brief world that takes place after Raulito try sentenced to 3 many years of hard work to own a small crime

Vicente, Valentina and you will Raulito make good wrenching choice to depart Puerto Rico about and you can look for a far greater lifestyle somewhere else. But the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association’s promises to the brand new puertorriquenos show blank. Unlike ped shanties. Wages is actually paid in scrip in place of cash. The schools these were advised its college students you are going to attend usually do not can be found. It’s a familiar yet devastating tale regarding exploitation, while the Puerto Ricans pick they have replaced one to bleak state having a unique that is in some way tough, where perhaps the short comforts regarding house was basically removed away gГјzel Avrupa kadД±nlarla Г§Д±kД±yor.

Vera’s better-researched guide is actually a valuable example within the Puerto Rican record and you will an eye fixed-beginning glance in the ugly truth at the rear of the new You.S.’s the reason usually skipped record while the good colonial stamina. That it facts interrogates the fresh surprising contacts ranging from several outposts of your own nation’s purple kingdom. Hawaii’s individual cutting-edge reputation of colonization isn’t searched in the same in depth method as is Puerto Rico’s, but we become a sense of the disparate forces at work from the Polynesian archipelago. Experts particularly Valentina and you may Vicente live-in shacks just after filled of the Portuguese sugarcane workers and work near to Japanese immigrants, exactly who they view with suspicion. The brand new sheriff pours the new courtroom in case a class away from pineapple fruit juice “delivered to him specifically by the his pal Dole, who owns the most significant pineapple plantation in every off Their state.”

However, Vera delivers a more needed restorative so you can history. The ebook is also the storyline from an early woman’s losses away from innocence, as Valentina slow falls out their girlish naivete, and you can a succession out of tragedies and you will adversity develop their own with the a good more challenging, reduced emotional person. And there is a bona-fide and you may heartbreaking feeling of loss one of new immigrants when they get to Hawaii. “I skip Puerto Rico and you will Ponce…plus brand new slope from inside the Utuado,” Valentina produces inside a letter to help you their own aunt, just who she’s got perhaps not seen since she is actually ents that he often “never pay attention to coquis again” just before advising themselves one “it absolutely was ridiculous to help you shout over frogs.”