Family Theme Analysis

When I Was Puerto Rican is a study of family dynamics, structure, and culture. Negi's family, both nuclear and extended, is large, ever-changing, and at times fiercely loyal. However, family isn't always perfectly defined or straightforward: particularly during times when Negi lives with various extended family members, she struggles to understand what it really means to be family, and seeks to define what family means for herself. In this way, Negi questions who's family, who isn't, and who's technically family but doesn't act like a family member should.

Mami is one of 15 siblings, and it's never stated how many siblings Papi has. This creates a vast web of aunts, cousins, and grandparents for Mami to call on when she needs help or is attempting to escape Papi. Negi notes that she barely knows most of these aunts or female cousins, yet they're always there to help Mami when she needs it. They treat Negi and her siblings as though they've known each other forever, and Mami's mother in New York sends regular packages of money and outgrown clothes from Mami's cousins. This gives Negi the security of a reliable extended family; they're always willing to take in Mami and the children, or just the children, as needed.

Over the course of the memoir, Negi is offered a variety of conflicting narratives regarding what's to be expected of a man in family life. She listens to Mami discuss with her friends that they fully expect their husbands to be unfaithful, even though it's always a surprise when their husbands or partners indeed act unfaithfully on a regular basis. These constant betrayals, however, don't stop Mami from dutifully preparing supper for Papi every night during his absences, on the off chance he comes home. When Papi is home, he and Mami seem both intimately close to each other and as though they hate each other in turn, sometimes within the span of a single day. Eventually, Negi witnesses her parents' most brutal fight, which comes about because Mami has decided to move her children to New York, since Papi refuses to marry her. As Negi watches the fight unfold, she realizes that Papi believes that family is mostly symbolic. His reason for not wanting to marry Mami is that he's already legally claimed every one of his and Mami's children, and they all have his surname. He insists that he's always provided enough money for food for their children, but Mami insists that a surname and money for food isn't enough. She craves the legitimacy that comes from a marriage license, and the fidelity that Papi has denied her for the entirety of their 14-year relationship.

This fight defines Negi's relationship to her family. She comes to see her mother as fully in the right, particularly when Papi shows so little remorse as he drives Mami, Negi, and two of her younger siblings to the airport. She feels even more betrayed when she finds out that Papi distributed Negi's remaining siblings among family members and married another woman following Mami's departure. Negi sees his unwillingness to keep their family together as the ultimate betrayal, one that suggests that for Negi and Mami at least, the true meaning of family is tied closely to reliability and fidelity.