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The oldest of eleven children, Esmeralda Santiago moved with her mother and siblings to New York City from Puerto Rico during her adolescence. Her memoirs, which include Almost a Woman, chronicle her experiences of growing up in a large, turbulent, and mobile household in Puerto Rico before relocating to New York when Santiago was thirteen. Santiago has also published a full-length novel, America's Dream, as well as two screenplays and various short stories, but it is her memoirs that have earned high marks from critics. "The books not only detail the footsteps she's taken from living in the lush tropics of rural Puerto Rico to the two-dimensional monochromatics of sooty Brooklyn," noted Los Angeles Times writer Lynell George, "but also the other, oftentimes more treacherous paths Santiago has traveled--those toward finding a place in the world."
Together with When I Was Puerto Rican, Almost a Woman focuses on Santiago's youth; the first volume concentrates on her childhood in Puerto Rico and treats the move to New York City briefly, while the second volume completes the story of the family's move and Santiago's "Americanization" and drive to success, first at the High School for Performing Arts in New York City and then at Harvard University.
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