De niña, Esmeralda aprendió a apreciar cómo se come una guayaba, a distinguir la canción del coquí, a identificar los ingredientes en las morcillas y a ayudar a que el alma de un bebé muerto subiera al Cielo. Pero precisamente cuando Esmeralda parecía haberlo aprendido todo sobre su cultura, la llevaron a Nueva York, donde las reglas --y el idioma-- eran no sólo diferentes, sino también desconcertantes. Cómo Esmeralda superó la adversidad, se ganó entrada a la Performing Arts High School y después continuó a Harvard, de donde se graduó con altos honores, es el relato de la tremenda trayectoria de una mujer verdaderamente extraordinaria

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

One of "The Best Memoirs of a Generation" (Oprah's Book Club): a young woman's journey from the mango groves and barrios of Puerto Rico to Brooklyn, and eventually on to Harvard

In a childhood full of tropical beauty and domestic strife, poverty and tenderness, Esmeralda Santiago learned the proper way to eat a guava, the sound of tree frogs, the taste of morcilla, and the formula for ushering a dead baby's soul to heaven. But when her mother, Mami, a force of nature, takes off to New York with her seven, soon to be eleven children, Esmeralda, the oldest, must learn new rules, a new language, and eventually a new identity. In the first of her three acclaimed memoirs, Esmeralda brilliantly recreates her tremendous journey from the idyllic landscape and tumultuous family life of her earliest years, to translating for her mother at the welfare office, and to high honors at Harvard.