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September 2002
A visitor to this website asks what I learned from writing When I was Puerto Rican and Almost a Woman. Well, to tell the truth, I could fill a whole other book with the answer to that question! Writing memoir involves chipping away at things in small increments, like a sculptor does to a piece of marble, until the image inside emerges.

The process of writing my memoirs involved solitary and painful self-examination. One of things I noticed was how many people with the same or similar names taught me unforgettable lessons.

My mother’s uncle, Francisco (Chico), touched me inappropriately when I was thirteen. That incident emphasized that I was prey for people with little or no respect for another human being. His son, Francisco (Paco) was a wrestler who taught me rudimentary self-defense. Had he done it sooner, I might have felled his father with a well-placed kick, but I am grateful to him nevertheless for helping me understand that there were things I could do to take care of myself.

My mother’s second husband was also Francisco. His brief time with my family showed us that love and loss are a part of living, and that you carry on, even when your heart is breaking. His son, my eighth sibling, Francisco, has proved that a man who grows up without a father can still be a good and caring father to his own children.

You might consider all these name repetitions as coincidences because the lives and lessons behind them were so different. I don’t believe in coincidence however, being as much a fatalist as the next Puerto Rican. But the fact that I can put a name to a personality trait is one of the best gifts that memoir writing has given me. It has helped me define my life in context to the people who were part of it, sometimes so briefly that they didn’t even notice or remember. But I did notice, and do remember, and am grateful.