Puerto Ricans have been writing about their experiences in the mainland for a very long time. At the beginning, the majority of the texts were written in Spanish by Puerto Rican writers residing in this country or by Puerto Rican writers who lived here for periods of time. A careful study of the works published about the life of Puerto Ricans in the mainland shows that they were written in prose

Pinto, Luis L.

English

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learn more about the complex relationship between white women and n on-white people. - Kristin H erzog Chapel Hill ,  North C arolina E dw ard Rivera. Family Installments: Memories of Growing Up Hispanic. (New York: Penguin Books Ltd. , 1 983) 299 pp. ,  $5.95 p aper. Puerto Ricans have been writing about their experiences in the m ainland for a very long time. At the beginning, the maj ority ofthe texts were written in Sp anish by Puerto Rican writers residing in this country or by Puerto Rican writers who lived here for periods of time. A careful study of the works published about the life of Puerto Ricans in the mainland shows that they were written in prose. Among the first generation of Puerto Rican American prose writers ,  the best known,  for the  quality and quantity of their published works, are Piri Thomas and Nicholasa M ohr. To the list of better known " new­yorican" writers we add the name of Edward Rivera. Family Install­ments:  Memo ries of Grow ing Up Hispanic is Rivera's  first attempt to write a long n arrative piece. In this novel ,  S antos M alanguez , the protagonist n arrator, is a participant eyewitness who sees well beyond the first person singular and becomes the translator of the Puerto Rican people in N orth American society. He portrays their j oy s  and s orrows,  their dreams and nightmares , their successes and defeats as they struggle in a different linguistic and cultural environment that much of the time is hostile and filled with indifference. The novel is  divided into thirteen chapters,  some of which had already been published as short stories .  In  the first three chapters, through an effective use of the flashback technique,  the protagonist-narrator relates experiences of his early childhood in a small town in the southwestern countryside of Puerto Rico .  Rivera includes in his narration a very interesting mixture of oral and official history of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean as he prepares the background for the introduction of the genealogy of his autobiographical main character, Santos Malanguez . In the middle chapters of the novel ,  as the subtitle Memo ries of Growing Up Hispanic suggests,  Rivera narrates the odyssey of this transplanted migrant family to East Harlem's EI  Barrio .  Fa mily Insta ll­ments portrays the complex cultural conflict that children growing up in 66 Explorations in Sights and Sounds No. 5 (Summer 1 985) a bilingual and bicultural setting must  face day after day .  The myriad problems that these individuals encounter every d ay are compounded by the attitudes ofthe representatives of the dominant culture in the form of racis m,  classism,  lower wages ,  high levels of unemployment,  poor housing,  and language with the development of the child's identity . Santos Malanguez is the product of this bilingual and bicultural environment, but he does not try like Richard Rodriquez in Hunger of Me mory to m aintain a clear-cut sep aration b etween his private life at home and his public life in  school .  Santos M al anguez m aintains a close relationship with his Puerto Rican family and community; both nurture him socially and spiritually a s  he integrates himself through a slow acculturation process to the English language and to the white mono­cultural education that he receives at S aint Misericordia 's  Academy. Unlike Richard Rodriguez, E dward Rivera keeps Spanish,  the language of his parents, the private language offamily relationships .  He never felt  that by speaking both Spanish and English he was socially dis­advantaged, and he never attached any kind of stigma to being bilingual or bicultural . I n  school he faced many problems Puerto Rican children still face today.  The C atholic nuns suggested to his p arents that they s peak E nglish at home to reinforce E nglish language learning.  The acculturation process in the M alanguez household ran smoothly ,  none­theless .  When both boys graduated from high school,  they were advised to go to a vocational school to learn a trade. We have heard all this before, and times have not ch anged much from the fifties to the present because Puerto Rican children are stil l  getting the same kind of advice.  After graduating from high school,  Santos held many odd j obs ;  then he decided to register in  college at night.  As time went on ,  the health of his father began to deteriorate; like many Puerto Ricans who were born and raised in Puerto Rico ,  his father had the dream of returning home some day.  Shortly after going back,  he  passed a way.  This sad incident brought all the family back to Puerto Rico for the burial ceremony.  The circle had been closed;  all  the family members had returned to their roots, but things were now different. Santos considered himself a stranger in his own country.  H e  did not fit in ,  because he considered himself a New Yorican.  The novel ends as  Santos Malanguez looks back through the airplane window to catch the last  glimpse of the beautiful city of San Juan lighted at night. E dward Rivera has written a moving personal and cultural novel. In this autobiographical account of Rivera's  experiences,  perceptions ,  and fi nally his m astery of the langu age of the dominant class we can see how language becomes a powerful tool  for economic  and cultural liberation for eradicating colonial subj ugation .  He has shown how a new language can be used as a method for self determination and self definition,  that language can be  a powerful  tool not only for expressing identity but to Explo rations in Sights and Sounds No. 5 (Summer 1 985) 67  express history and culture-the Puerto Rican people .  Rivera also shows the power of iiterature for demonstrating how extern al forces determine one 's  social ,  psychic,  and ego self. - Luis L. Pinto Bronx Community College of C U N Y  Anya Peterson Royce. Ethnic Identity: Strategies o f  Diversity. (Bloomington: Indiana, Indiana University Press,  1 982) 247 pp. , $ 2 7 . 5 0 ,  p aper. " . . .  Ethnic identity req uires the maintenance of sufficiently consistent behavior to enable others to place an individual or group in some given social  category, thus permitting appropriate interactive behavior . "  With this definition by George D e  Vos as thesis,  Anya Peterson Royce examines ethnic identity,  considering it as " . . .  one  of  m any identities available to people . . .  developed, manipulated or ignored . . .  " as the parti­cular situation demands.  She identifies power, perception and purpose as the fundamental criteria which determine behavior in any inter-ethnic situ ation .  C oloni alis m,  nationalism and mass immigration are an alyzed from an historical and theoretical perspective and as socio-economic m anifestations of power,  perception and purpose by dominant and su bordinant groups interacting in their respective societies .  E xpres sions,  manifestations of eth nic identity, are seen as a dynamic which is ch aracterized by both change and consistency.  This dynamic encom­passes all v ariations of indi vidual and collective behavior, incl udi n g  the antitheses of  cultural pluralism and isolationism.  The dynamic is  sh aped by socio-economic factors but motivating forces are power,  p erception and purpose.  Applying this analysis to contemporary social phenomena in the United States ,  she  identifies cultural pluralism (or " m elting poti s m " )  as responsible for ambiguities and conflicts in ethnic identity, expressed in im migrant families ,  as cultural generation gaps .  Women's  s truggles for recognition and economic equ ality are but another expression of inter­action and confl ict  between subordinant and domin ant groups ,  parallel to similar interaction (and struggles) by nations under colonial rule and im migrant groups in a host society . Similarly, "token" recognition of women ( in corporate ,  academic,  or administrative roles)  is identical to the "token" status afforded members of millority ethnic groups by 68 Exp lo rations in Sigh ts a nd Sou nds No. 5 (Summer 1 985) 

[Review of] Edward Rivera. Family Installments: Memories of Growing Up Hispanic

https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1194&amp;context=ess

[Review of] Edward Rivera. Family Installments: Memories of Growing Up Hispanic

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