America Gonzalez, a hotel housekeeper on an island off the coast of Puerto Rico, is worried about her mother's drinking and fearful of her abusive married lover, but it is her daughter's impulsive decision to run away with her boyfriend that pushes America to the limits of her ability to cope. When a vacationing couple from Westchester, New York, offers her a job, she decides to leave the tropical island where she has always lived. Puzzled by the upper-middle-class couple's hectic workaday schedule and intrusive questions, she nonetheless manages to alter their austere routine and to master the high-tech equipment they seem to require for every task. She soon discovers, however, that she can't run away from her problems when her brutal lover tracks her down at her new address. Although her novel suffers from heavy-handed sermonizing on the evils of domestic violence and some too-obvious symbolism, Santiago, also the author of the acclaimed memoir When I Was Puerto Rican (1993), convincingly depicts America's heroic struggle to bridge the gap between her old and new lives. Joanne Wilkinson
From Kirkus Reviews
Puerto Ricanborn first-novelist Santiago (the memoir When I Was Puerto Rican, 1993) gives a contemporary twist to the immigrant experience as she limns the plight of a woman escaping an abusive man to pursue her dreams. Amrica Gonzalez was an unmarried teenage mother, as her own mother, Ester, was before her, so when 14-year-old daughter Rosalinda runs away with her boyfriend, Amrica fears the worst. A housekeeper at a hotel in Puerto Rico, she cleans up after rich guests, dreaming of making a better life for Rosalinda. Her daughter soon comes home, and though she is not pregnant, she and Amrica fight constantly--fights exacerbated by Correa, Rosalinda's irresponsible father, who insists on interfering in the way Amrica raises their daughter. A married man with a family, Correa continues to see Amrica, whom he insists is his true love. But Amrica's love for Correa has been destroyed by his increasingly violent abuse, assaults triggered by alcohol and jealousy. When the Leveretts, an American family vacationing at the hotel, offer Amrica a job in New York taking care of their two children, she accepts and begins planning her journey without telling Correa. Once there, she finds life in the Westchester household not only lonely but less than perfect: The Leveretts work long hours, often quarrel, and seem unable to enjoy their home or their children. Amrica begins making plans to bring Rosalinda to the States, but Correa, who's discovered his lover's whereabouts, calls to say he's coming to take her back. In a nail-biting climax, Amrica finally frees herself from Correa and is at last able to assert her ``right to live life as she chooses.'' Santiago's acute eye and feel for the telling detail make this a work of fine reportage, as well as an engrossing if often somber tale with a quiet but always tenacious heroine. ($55,000 ad/promo; author tour) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
[From] a strong and irresistible new voice in fiction...this novel is involving and immediate, truthful and tender."
-- "Publishers Weekly"
"I wish I could write like Esmeralda Santiago! Read this book; be inspired."
-- "Terry McMillan, #1 New York Times bestselling author"
"Lyrical [and] haunting, América's liberating epiphany will have readers . . . on their feet and cheering."
-- "Washington Post"
"Thrilling and page-turning. The fabulous journey of America Gonzalez...is laid out masterfully."
-- "Chicago Tribune" From the Back Cover
América Gonzalez is a hotel housekeeper on an island off the coast of Puerto Rico, cleaning up after wealthy foreigners who don't look her In the eye. Her alcoholic mother resents her; her married boyfriend, Correa, beats her; and their fourteen-year-old daughter thinks life would be better anywhere but with América. So when América is offered the chance to work as alive-in housekeeper and nanny for a family in Westchester County, New York, she takes it as a sign that a door to escape has been opened. Yet even as América revels in the comparative luxury of her new life, daring to care about a man other than Correa, she is faced with dramatic proof that no matter what she does, she can't get away from her past.
About the Author
Esmeralda Santiago is the author of the memoirs When I Was Puerto Rican, Almost a Woman, which she adapted into a Peabody Award-winning film for PBS's Masterpiece, and The Turkish Lover; the novels América's Dream and Conquistadora; and a children's book, A Doll for Navidades. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and House & Garden, among other publications, and on NPR's All Things Considered and Morning Edition. Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, she lives in New York.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chpater One
The Problem with Rosalinda
It's her life, and she's in the middle of it. On her knees, scrubbing behind a toilet at the only hotel on the island. She hums a bolero, a love song filled with longing. She's always humming, sometimes a ballad, sometimes a lilting cha-cha-cha. Often, she sings out loud. Most of the time she's not even aware of the pleasing music that comes from her and is surprised when tourists tell her how charming it is that she sings as she works.
The tiles are unevenly laid behind the toilet, and she catches a nail on the corner of one and tears it to the quick. ''Ay!'' Still on her knees, she moves to the sink and runs cold water over her middle finger. The bright pink crescent of her nail hangs by the cuticle. She bites it off, drawing salty blood.
"!America!"
The scream bounces against the concrete walls of La Casa del Frances. America scrambles up, finger still in mouth, and leans out of the bathroom window. Her mother runs back and forth along the path at the side of the hotel, peering up at the second floor.
"What is it?"
"Ay, nena, get down here!" Ester wails and collapses into a squat, hands over her face.
"What is it, Mami? What's the matter?" From above, Ester is a circle of color on the path, the full skirt of her flowered housedress a ring around narrow shoulders, brown arms, and pink curlers on copper hair. She rocks from side to side, sobs with the gusto of a spoiled child. For an instant America considers a shortcut through the window. Seeing her mother from above, small and vulnerable, sets her heart racing, and a lump forms in her throat that threatens to choke her. "I'm coming, Mami!" she yells, and she runs through the guest room, down the stairs, around the courtyard, out the double doors of the front verandah, past the gardenia bushes, through the gate to the side garden, and down the path, where Ester still squats, still wails as if the world were coming to an end.Sleepy guests lean out of their windows or step onto porches, concerned expressions clouding their vacation faces. Don Irving, the owner of the hotel, runs heavily from the back of the building, reaching Ester at the same time as America.
"Whasgononere?" he bellows in English. "What's all the screaming about?"
"Ay don no!" America kneels next to Ester. "Mami, please! What's the matter?"
"!Ay, mi'ja!" Ester is hyperventilating and can't get the words out. America's breathing quickens, and a whirling pressure builds around her head.
"Please, Mami, what is it? What's happened?"
Ester shakes her head, sprinkling the air with tears. She presses both hands against her chest, as if to control its rising and falling. She gulps air and, in a halting voice that rises to a final wail, gives America the news. "!Rosalinda se escapo!"
At first she doesn't quite understand what Ester means by Rosalinda has escaped. Her fourteen-year-old daughter is not a prisoner. But the words echo in her head, and the meaning becomes clear. America covers her face, squeezes her fingers deep into her flesh, and sobs. "Ay, no, Mami, don't say such a thing!"
Ester, who has gained some composure now that the problem is no longer hers, wraps her arms around America and rubs her shoulders, her tears mingling with those of her daughter. "She went with that boy, Taino."
America stares at Ester, tries to make sense of what she's heard. But the words and images are distorted, go by too quickly, like a movie in fast-forward. And at the end there's a pause, a soft-focus portrait of her daughter, Rosalinda, and pimpled Taino with his innocent brown eyes. She shakes her head, trying to erase the picture.
"What the hell's going on here?" Don Irving stands over them, blowing great gusts of cigar-scented breath. Behind him, Nilda, the laundress, Feto, the cook, and Tomas, the gardener, run up from different directions. They surround America and Ester, and the men help them stand.
"Ees my dohter," says America, avoiding Don Irving's eyes. "She in trubel."
"Rosalinda ran away with her boyfriend," Nilda interprets, and America cringes with shame.
"Oh, fahcrysakes!" Don Irving spits into the oregano patch. "Geddadehere, c'mon." He steers the sobbing America and Ester out of earshot of his guests, to the back of the building, where he leaves Feto and Tomas to escort them to the path behind the stables. Don Irving walks back to the front garden, mumbling. "Every day it's something else. A damn soap opera. Jesus Christ!" He waves at the curious tourists at the windows and porches. "It's okay, everything's fine. Relax."
Supported by Feto and Tomas, America and Ester go in the opposite direction. The tourists stare long after they have all disappeared behind the outdoor bar.
America and Ester shuffle home through the path at the rear of La Casa del Frances. Nilda accompanies them, rubbing the shoulders of one, then the other.
"Calm yourselves. If you don't control your nerves, you won't be able to help the child," Nilda reminds them. Her voice vibrates with the joy of a busybody who has stumbled into the middle of the action.
"You can go back, Nilda," America suggests between sniffles. "We can manage on our own."
But Nilda is not so easily dissuaded. America is not like other women. She's not willing to talk about her life, to commiserate with other women about how tough it is. She goes around humming and singing like she's the happiest person in the world, even though everyone knows different. No, Nilda will not leave her side. It's not every day she can plunge into America Gonzalez's reserve.
"I'll just get you home and make sure you're all right," she insists.
