On vacation to Ponce to go to a wealthy cousin’s wedding, Vicente suits the latest pleasant young Valentina

Vera’s moving book — her next immediately following If i Bring you Roses — examines new forces one to provided one nearest and dearest to leave the dear homeland and you can seek yet another begin in an as yet not known and you will unwelcoming house

Marisel Vera stands out a light into the a small-recognized facet of U.S. records in the Liking Out of Sugar. In the change of your own twentieth century, lots of people regarding the has just received territory regarding Puerto Rico journeyed midway globally to the office to your sugarcane plantations from inside the Their state.

To learn as to the reasons Vicente Vega, their partner Valentina and you can Vicente’s half-brother Raulito make thorough go to Hawaii, Vera (that is regarding Puerto Rican traditions) basic converts this new time clock to the newest mid-19th century, in the event that Spanish however influenced across the Caribbean island. Slavery remains legal (it could maybe not avoid up to 1873), and you will tall impoverishment is actually general. Even after abolition, of numerous on isle are not any better than serfs, lifestyle “la vida de perro.” (Spanish was interwoven on text message.) In contrast, Vicente’s dad try an averagely well-out of proprietor out-of a coffees plantation in the mountainous area for Utuado. Nevertheless the family’s luck refuse usually. Once Vicente develops so you’re able to cock, they are humble growers, even though he is best off than the peones which “is actually fortunate whenever they consume once a day.”

The fresh new smitten girl “wishing to possess romance and you will excitement” gets right up their particular close dreams of Paris so you’re able to a good de- casa” into the farm is nothing such as being a housewife for the Ponce. Still, she vows to help you “invest herself in order to their particular family relations and place aside all of the childish aspirations,” because the she writes when you look at the a letter in order to their unique sister Elena shortly after their matrimony. Their lifestyle, no matter if hard, isn’t as opposed to the joys. Something alter if You.S. ousts new Language from inside the 1898. When Hurricane Ciriaco moves a year later, the newest disaster is actually tremendous. The newest inadequate American method to handling the crisis is depressingly comparable to the bungled response to Hurricane Maria more a great century afterwards.

That is really in control regarding territory is clear from inside the a short world that occurs just after Raulito try sentenced to 3 numerous years of tough labor for a small offense

Vicente, Valentina and Raulito build an excellent wrenching decision to exit Puerto Rico trailing and look for a far greater lives in other places. Nevertheless the Hawaiian Glucose Planters’ Association’s intends to this new puertorriquenos confirm empty. In lieu of ped shanties. Wages is actually paid-in scrip unlike bucks. The fresh new colleges these were told the pupils you are going to sit in try not to occur. It is a familiar yet devastating story off exploitation, while the Puerto Ricans discover they’ve got exchanged one bleak situation to have a unique that’s somehow tough, where perhaps the small comforts regarding home was indeed removed aside.

Vera’s well-researched book is actually a valuable session for the Puerto Rican record and you will an eye-opening glance from the unattractive truth behind the new U.S.’s the reason tend to missed records as the good colonial strength. It story interrogates brand new surprising associations ranging from one or two outposts of your own country’s imperial kingdom. Hawaii’s very own advanced history of colonization is not browsed in the same in depth method as is Puerto Rico’s, however, we become a feeling of the disparate forces at work regarding Polynesian archipelago. Workers such as for instance Valentina and you can Vicente live in shacks just after filled by Portuguese sugarcane specialists and you may work close to Japanese immigrants, whom it examine having uncertainty. Brand new sheriff pours brand new legal in the case a course out of pineapple juices “provided for him specifically cute Kansas, OK girls by the their friend Dole, the owner of the biggest pineapple plantation throughout off The state.”

But Vera provides a more than required corrective to background. The publication is also the story regarding a young female’s loss regarding innocence, just like the Valentina slow sheds their unique girlish naivete, and you may a series out of tragedies and you may hardships develop their own on the a more difficult, smaller psychological individual. And there is a bona-fide and you will heartbreaking feeling of losses among the new immigrants after they get to Hawaii. “We skip Puerto Rico and Ponce…as well as new slope inside the Utuado,” Valentina produces within the a page to help you their cousin, which she has maybe not seen as the she is actually ents which he will “never listen to coquis once more” in advance of informing himself that “it was ridiculous in order to shout over frogs.”