When I Was Puerto Rican

by

Esmeralda Santiago

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Mami Character Analysis

Mami is Negi's mother. She's a light-skinned woman and in Negi's perception, is always pregnant. By the end of the memoir, Mami has 11 children. Though she and Papi love each other and spend 14 years in an on-again off-again relationship, they're never married. During times when the fighting gets particularly bad or Papi is gone for long periods of time without explanation, Mami packs up her children and moves them to Santurce, where she has a vast web of family to call on for help. She loves Papi, but she also believes that he sees other women behind her back and believes that this is to be expected of men in general. She desperately wants to be self-sufficient and as such, she's one of the first mothers in Macún to get a job outside the home, sewing bras in a factory. Though this makes her days particularly long (she cooks breakfast and supper for her children in the morning before she leaves), she takes pride in her work and loves having a job. Despite the fact that she cares deeply for her children and makes sure they're fed, dressed, and in school, Mami is often violent and abusive towards them. She demands complete submission and administers beatings when the children fail to comply, though Negi suffers the most. Mami is, however, more reliable than Papi. When Papi refuses to marry Mami, Mami moves her children to Brooklyn and continues to work in bra factories. At this point, Negi realizes that Mami is the only family member she can count on to always be there for her. Mami fully believes that with hard work her children can get ahead, and she encourages them to do well in school so they can go to college.

Mami Quotes in When I Was Puerto Rican

The When I Was Puerto Rican quotes below are all either spoken by Mami or refer to Mami. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Identity Theme Icon
).
1. Jíbara Quotes

Even at the tender age when I didn't yet know my real name, I was puzzled by the hypocrisy of celebrating a people everyone looked down on. But there was no arguing with Mami, who, in those days, was always right.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami
Page Number: 13
Explanation and Analysis:

"Does anyone call Titi Merín Esmeralda?"
"Oh, sure. People who don't know her well—the government, her boss. We all have our official names, and then our nicknames, which are like secrets that only the people who love us use."

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami
Page Number: 14
Explanation and Analysis:

Doña Zena dragged Delsa and Norma into her yard, while I straggled behind, fretting about what had just happened, jealous that, even though my lap had been stolen years ago by Delsa and then Norma, another baby was coming to separate me further from my mother, whose rages were not half so frightening as the worry that she would now be so busy with an infant as to totally forget me.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami, Delsa, Norma, Héctor
Page Number: 18
Explanation and Analysis:
2. Fighting Naked Quotes

Chief among the sins of men was the other woman, who was always a puta, a whore. My image of these women was fuzzy, since there were none in Macún, where all the females were wives or young girls who would one day be wives.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami, Papi, Provi
Page Number: 29
Explanation and Analysis:
5. Why Women Remain Jamona Quotes

I wondered if Mami felt the way I was feeling at this moment on those nights when she slept on their bed alone...whether the soft moans I heard coming from their side of the room were stifled sobs, like the ones that now pressed against my throat...

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami, Papi, Abuela
Page Number: 100
Explanation and Analysis:

It seemed to me then that remaining jamona could not possibly hurt this much. That a woman alone, even if ugly, could not suffer as much as my beautiful mother did.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami, Papi, Abuela
Page Number: 104
Explanation and Analysis:
6. Mami Gets a Job Quotes

But until Gloria asked, I'd never put it together that in order for me and my four sisters and two brothers to be born, Papi had to do to Mami what roosters did to hens, bulls did to cows, horses did to mares.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami, Papi, Gloria
Page Number: 121
Explanation and Analysis:

"I can't count on anyone from outside the family. Besides, you're old enough to be more responsible."
And with those words Mami sealed a pact she had designed, written, and signed for me.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami (speaker)
Related Symbols: Bras
Page Number: 123
Explanation and Analysis:

What makes them so good and me so bad?

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami
Page Number: 125
Explanation and Analysis:
9. Casi Señorita Quotes

She was overwhelmed by what she called "the sacrifices I have to endure for you kids," and my love, expressed in demands, added a greater burden.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami, Abuela
Page Number: 181
Explanation and Analysis:
10. Dreams of a Better Life Quotes

Each man who did a double take or pledged to love her forever, to take her home with him, to give his life for her, took her away from me. She had become public property—no longer the mother of seven children, but a woman desired by many.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami
Page Number: 190
Explanation and Analysis:

I called up the images of Armando or Ricardo, and with Mami and Papi's shrill fights as background, I imagined a man and woman touching one another gently, discovering beauty in a stubbled cheek or a curl of hair, whispering adoring words into each other's ear, warming one another's bodies with love.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami, Papi
Related Symbols: Armando and Ricardo
Page Number: 195
Explanation and Analysis:

Is that what you want? Marriage? What would that do? I've recognized them all. They all have my last name...

Related Characters: Papi (speaker), Negi, Mami
Page Number: 207
Explanation and Analysis:

It didn't seem possible that he was a good man when he wasn't fighting for her or for us. He was letting us go to New York as if it no longer mattered where we were, as if the many leavings and reconciliations had exhausted him, had burned out whatever spark had made him search for us in swamps and fetid lagoons.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami, Papi
Page Number: 208
Explanation and Analysis:
11. Angels on the Ceiling Quotes

I hadn't done any of the things women did to get men interested. I'd been minding my own business at home...It was alarming, and at once I realized why Mami always told me to be más disimulada when I stared at people, which meant that I should pretend I wasn't interested.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami
Page Number: 239
Explanation and Analysis:
12. You Don't Want to Know Quotes

Mami became, even more than before, both mother and father to us. We could count on her in a way we had never been able to count on Papi, Tata, or Francisco, who had made everyone happy for such a short time before dying and becoming a ghost that haunted us all for the rest of our lives.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami, Papi, Tata, Francisco
Page Number: 245
Explanation and Analysis:

But more and more I suspected Mami's optimism was a front. No one, I thought, could get beat down so many times and still come up smiling.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami
Page Number: 247
Explanation and Analysis:

"Hit me, go ahead. You can kill me if that makes you feel better," I screamed loud enough for the world to hear. I stood in front of her, shaking all over, hands at my sides, martyrlike, fully aware of the dramatic moment that might backfire but willing to take the chance.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami, Tata
Page Number: 245
Explanation and Analysis:
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Mami Quotes in When I Was Puerto Rican

The When I Was Puerto Rican quotes below are all either spoken by Mami or refer to Mami. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Identity Theme Icon
).
1. Jíbara Quotes

Even at the tender age when I didn't yet know my real name, I was puzzled by the hypocrisy of celebrating a people everyone looked down on. But there was no arguing with Mami, who, in those days, was always right.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami
Page Number: 13
Explanation and Analysis:

"Does anyone call Titi Merín Esmeralda?"
"Oh, sure. People who don't know her well—the government, her boss. We all have our official names, and then our nicknames, which are like secrets that only the people who love us use."

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami
Page Number: 14
Explanation and Analysis:

Doña Zena dragged Delsa and Norma into her yard, while I straggled behind, fretting about what had just happened, jealous that, even though my lap had been stolen years ago by Delsa and then Norma, another baby was coming to separate me further from my mother, whose rages were not half so frightening as the worry that she would now be so busy with an infant as to totally forget me.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami, Delsa, Norma, Héctor
Page Number: 18
Explanation and Analysis:
2. Fighting Naked Quotes

Chief among the sins of men was the other woman, who was always a puta, a whore. My image of these women was fuzzy, since there were none in Macún, where all the females were wives or young girls who would one day be wives.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami, Papi, Provi
Page Number: 29
Explanation and Analysis:
5. Why Women Remain Jamona Quotes

I wondered if Mami felt the way I was feeling at this moment on those nights when she slept on their bed alone...whether the soft moans I heard coming from their side of the room were stifled sobs, like the ones that now pressed against my throat...

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami, Papi, Abuela
Page Number: 100
Explanation and Analysis:

It seemed to me then that remaining jamona could not possibly hurt this much. That a woman alone, even if ugly, could not suffer as much as my beautiful mother did.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami, Papi, Abuela
Page Number: 104
Explanation and Analysis:
6. Mami Gets a Job Quotes

But until Gloria asked, I'd never put it together that in order for me and my four sisters and two brothers to be born, Papi had to do to Mami what roosters did to hens, bulls did to cows, horses did to mares.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami, Papi, Gloria
Page Number: 121
Explanation and Analysis:

"I can't count on anyone from outside the family. Besides, you're old enough to be more responsible."
And with those words Mami sealed a pact she had designed, written, and signed for me.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami (speaker)
Related Symbols: Bras
Page Number: 123
Explanation and Analysis:

What makes them so good and me so bad?

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami
Page Number: 125
Explanation and Analysis:
9. Casi Señorita Quotes

She was overwhelmed by what she called "the sacrifices I have to endure for you kids," and my love, expressed in demands, added a greater burden.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami, Abuela
Page Number: 181
Explanation and Analysis:
10. Dreams of a Better Life Quotes

Each man who did a double take or pledged to love her forever, to take her home with him, to give his life for her, took her away from me. She had become public property—no longer the mother of seven children, but a woman desired by many.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami
Page Number: 190
Explanation and Analysis:

I called up the images of Armando or Ricardo, and with Mami and Papi's shrill fights as background, I imagined a man and woman touching one another gently, discovering beauty in a stubbled cheek or a curl of hair, whispering adoring words into each other's ear, warming one another's bodies with love.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami, Papi
Related Symbols: Armando and Ricardo
Page Number: 195
Explanation and Analysis:

Is that what you want? Marriage? What would that do? I've recognized them all. They all have my last name...

Related Characters: Papi (speaker), Negi, Mami
Page Number: 207
Explanation and Analysis:

It didn't seem possible that he was a good man when he wasn't fighting for her or for us. He was letting us go to New York as if it no longer mattered where we were, as if the many leavings and reconciliations had exhausted him, had burned out whatever spark had made him search for us in swamps and fetid lagoons.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami, Papi
Page Number: 208
Explanation and Analysis:
11. Angels on the Ceiling Quotes

I hadn't done any of the things women did to get men interested. I'd been minding my own business at home...It was alarming, and at once I realized why Mami always told me to be más disimulada when I stared at people, which meant that I should pretend I wasn't interested.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami
Page Number: 239
Explanation and Analysis:
12. You Don't Want to Know Quotes

Mami became, even more than before, both mother and father to us. We could count on her in a way we had never been able to count on Papi, Tata, or Francisco, who had made everyone happy for such a short time before dying and becoming a ghost that haunted us all for the rest of our lives.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami, Papi, Tata, Francisco
Page Number: 245
Explanation and Analysis:

But more and more I suspected Mami's optimism was a front. No one, I thought, could get beat down so many times and still come up smiling.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami
Page Number: 247
Explanation and Analysis:

"Hit me, go ahead. You can kill me if that makes you feel better," I screamed loud enough for the world to hear. I stood in front of her, shaking all over, hands at my sides, martyrlike, fully aware of the dramatic moment that might backfire but willing to take the chance.

Related Characters: Negi (speaker), Mami, Tata
Page Number: 245
Explanation and Analysis: