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The experience of growing up Puerto Rican has produced some of the most conflicted, political & poignant writing of the past century. Now, GROWING UP PUERTO RICAN brings together twenty stories by some of the most important Puerto Rican writers & several by provocative new authors. Each in his or her own style uses personal experience to portray vividly the problems that beset the passage from childhood to adult. Published: May 2000 A collection of twenty pieces written by some of the most important Puerto Rican writers as well as several provocative new authors. Selections range from poignant autobiographical recollections to painful memories of a childhood that is neither here nor there; of questions of identity, conflicted loyalties, language and culture. It explores the youthful passion, love, anguish, and shared experiences involved in growing up Puerto Rican in America.

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Library Journal Review

In this collection, 20 modern authors have written about childhood and moving from the isla to the mainland and back and, along the way, toward a Puerto Rican identity. Editor De Jesús (M.A., Brown) divides the fiction and essays into four sections and provides a useful introduction. The section Neither Here Nor There contains Abraham Rodriguez Jr.'s classic "The Boy Without a Flag," in which American identity is questioned. Newer author Rodney Morales humorously depicts Hawaiians and Puerto Ricans overcoming differences through family values in "Ship of Dreams." Throughout, family and survival dominate as themes, sometimes pessimistically. Ivonne Sapia's "Sofia" is a grandmother who practices magic yet leads through faith. The section "Once on This Island" includes the lyrical translation of Ana Lydia Vega's "Liliane's Sunday," about a political massacre. Compared with Boricuas: Influential Puerto Rican Writings (LJ 8/95), this book has a narrower range but is well crafted. Recommended for public and academic libraries.‘Rebecca Martin, Northern Illinois Univ. Lib., DeKalb (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Puerto Ricans occupy a unique place among U.S. immigrant populations, stresses freelancer de Jesus, for they are colonial U.S. citizens whose mother tongue is Spanish and‘when they move to the States‘their culture and customs are foreign to mainlanders. Often dark-skinned, they face racial discrimination, large populations of them living in the barrios of New York City, Los Angeles and Hawaii. These 20 stories and memoirs by accomplished Puerto Rican writers are dominated by issues of identity that are often complicated by the sense of confused nationality and ethnicity. In "The Boy Without a Flag," Abraham Rodriguez Jr. thinks to emulate a Puerto Rican hero and win his father's admiration by a brave, sad, comic stand to assert his ethnicity by refusing to salute the flag. Keen feelings of dispossession and alienation color the memoirs of Aurora Levins Morales, Julio Marzán and several others. Some pieces are filled with nostalgia for the way of life and beauties of Puerto Rico, and others explore the ways color discrimination by Puerto Ricans themselves affects their sense of self. An exceptionally varied and revealing portrait of a group whose youth engage in a common search for identity that is made more difficult by cultural displacement. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

In the same series as Growing Up Asian American (1993), Growing Up Native American (1993), and other fine ethnic anthologies, this collection of fiction, memoirs, and essays includes a rich diversity of voices about Puerto Rican childhood and coming-of-age, both in the U.S. and on the island. Among the 20 writers are several established names, such as Judith Ortiz Cofer and Edward Rivera, as well as some new authors. Nearly all are bilingual; six have been translated from the original Spanish. One of the best stories is Abraham Rodriguez's "The Boy without a Flag," about a teenager caught between his loyalty to his father and his American school. Set on the island, JoseLuis Gonzalez's story is about a child poor and outside. As the excellent introduction points out, nearly all the stories are about those for whom home is "neither here nor there." --Hazel Rochman