“Siguemos la lucha, pa’lante as we say. We keep going forward as we always have, am I right?” Vicente looked at his wife, still as pretty as the girl he’d met in Ponce.
The siren blared a warning.
“We’d better run.” Valentina moved away.
“No.”
“But the police—”
He took her hand. “We walk.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
DREAMS
Lourdes and Mirta played hide-and-seek among the trees, their giggles rising to greet the moon. It was Saturday night, and the Puerto Ricans could stay up as long as they wanted without dreading the blare of the siren and the nightsticks of the police. They could choose to wake on Sunday when they pleased, just like in Puerto Rico—though that now seemed like a dream from long ago.
The strains of a ukulele came from the Japanese camp.
After a few minutes, Valentina said, “It’s a strange sound, isn’t it?”
“Nothing like the cuatro,” Vicente said, smiling.
“But still nice,” she said.
They called the girls and walked to the pond. It was their special place because it was their place—a little too far from the Puerto Rican camp, where there were streams closer by, and the Japanese had their own communal baths and their own favorite streams and rivers. Music and laughter were coming from the direction of the hut belonging to Dolores and Eugenio, whose turn it was to host the party. They’d join their friends later.
He remembered how on a night like this in Puerto Rico, on another island half a world away, he’d been talking to the bride, his cousin, and there she’d been, Valentina.
Now, they leaned against the trunk of a palm tree.
“I’ll grow coffee again,” Vicente said. “One day I’ll have my own coffee farm again.”
Vicente recalled the last time he had gone to his farm, how he’d sat on a tree stump taking in what once had been and was no more, how he’d promised himself that he’d return to his mountain and plant more trees and build another house for Valentina. His children would grow up on the mountain with Raulito’s children and their children’s children. Back then, he’d thought that would be possible.
Lourdes began to teach Mirta a song Valentina liked to sing to her when she was younger. “A la rorro niña, a la rorro ya, duérmase mi niña, duérmaseme ya—”
Valentina joined in. “Que los angelitos tu sueños velarán.”
She covered her eyes with her hand. “Esa canción de cuna—”
“Querida.” Vicente put his arm around her.
“Why do you think it happened to us? Twice?” Valentina leaned her head on his shoulder.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Vicente and Valentina settled on the ground, their backs against the tree trunk. They listened to their girls sing. He drew her into his lap, he reached under her dress.
Valentina protested, “The children—”
He removed his hand.
Valentina’s hair brushed his cheek. “Vicente, what if we’re cursed?”
“Querida, we’re not cursed, we’re blessed.”
“You think so?” She wasn’t sure.
Valentina rubbed her stomach. She wasn’t ready to tell him. Not yet. Vicente would be so happy. He’d wanted another baby. And she thought she did, too, but she couldn’t forget the ones she’d lost. The months after Evita died—and then Javiercito—she wasn’t yet able to think about Javiercito, she had to be strong for Lourdes. And now there was Mirta, who needed her, too.
Valentina recalled one night in the little wood house Vicente had built—when los tiznados had surprised them. She had huddled with the sleeping children as she listened to Vicente shooting at the bandits, defending their home, their family. She’d bitten back her screams. But he’d come back to her and he’d taken her to bed. They’d made love, and afterward, she’d fallen asleep.
“Seguir la lucha,” Vicente said. “That’s all we can do.”
“Pa’lante,” Valentina said.
They listened to the little girls sing.
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As the daughter of Puerto Ricans who were taught little of their own country’s history, I’ve been obsessed with learning about my heritage for years. One day, I stumbled upon the fact that over five thousand Puerto Ricans had gone to work on the sugar plantations of Hawaii after the US invasion and the San Ciriaco hurricane and never returned. It made me think of my father, who died in Chicago without ever achieving his dream of owning that little finca back on the island—the dream of so many who leave. What about the Puerto Ricans who had gone to Hawaii in the early 1900s? Did they have the same dreams to return? And so began my own journey to The Taste of Sugar.
I couldn’t have written this novel without the work of the great Puerto Rican historians Fernando Picó and Carmelo Rosario Natal. Nor would I have known where to start without Norma Carr’s The Puerto Ricans in Hawaii, 1900–1958. Years ago, I was fortunate to meet Norma in Honolulu while on a family vacation. She told me, “Write the story like a movie.” And then there was Joan Hori, curator of the Hawaiian and Pacific Collection at the University of Hawai‘i at Ma¯noa, who photocopied every single Hawaiian newspaper from 1900 to 1902 that had a mention of Puerto Rico or Puerto Ricans. Joan kindly mailed me all these copies for less than I should have paid. (This was before the newspapers were digitalized.) My research led me to anthropologist Iris López, who had interviewed the descendants of the Puerto Rican migrants. Iris, now mi comadre, inspired Raulito. “Give Vicente a brother,” Iris said to me. “The plantations often separated families.” I’m grateful to El Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños in NYC, where I viewed nineteenth-century articles from Puerto Rican newspapers on microfilm.
I’m grateful also to the Eduardo Lozano Latin American Collection, Hillman Library, University of Pittsburgh, for allowing me to borrow books in both Spanish and English that I never thought I’d be able to hold in my hands.
My agent Betsy Amster encouraged me by her willingness to read draft after draft after draft even on planes when she couldn’t look up Spanish words. She’s always had my back. Un abrazote to the brilliant Cristina García. I attended Cristina’s Las Dos Brujas Writers’ Workshop in San Francisco thinking I had a finished novel and came out with her words guiding me to be braver, “We’re not in this business to be loved, we’re here to make a difference.” Gina Iaquinta, my gifted editor at Liveright, helped me to keep my title of Revision Queen and to fulfill the vision I had for the novel. It wouldn’t be what it is without Gina. I’ll always be grateful to Gina and the Liveright team for their enthusiasm for my story.
Thank you to my first readers: my cheerleaders Larry Starzec, Lauren Jiles-Johnson, Jane Cavolina, and my children, Alyssa Vera Ramos and Wilfredo Ramos Jr. You make your mami very proud. Mi prima Elena Casaretto was my muse for Valentina’s Elena. Gracias, prima. Gracias to Mercedes Suazo for helping me con español. All my love to my husband and partner, Wilfredo (Fred) Ramos, who was on this journey with me from the beginning, always encouraging me, paying the bills, never complaining about all the books I bought for research, believing as I did that Puerto Rico’s past is relevant to its present and to its future. Pa’lante.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
In addition to the many newspaper articles about the time period, especially in Puerto Rican and Hawaiian newspapers and the New York Times, the following books and articles were helpful in the writing of The Taste of Sugar.
Aráez y Ferrando, Román. Historia del ciclón del día de San Ciriaco. San Juan, Puerto Rico: Imprenta Heraldo Española, 1905.
Schwartz, Stuart B. “The Hurricane of San Ciriaco: Disaster, Politics, and Society in Puerto Rico, 1899–1901.” Hispanic American Historical Review 72, no. 3 (1992): 303–34.
Sources for the Study of Puerto Rican Migration, 1879–1930. History Task Force, Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños, Hunter College, City University of New York, 1982.
The following books
by Fernando Picó:
Amargo Café. Río Piedras, Puerto Rico: Ediciones Huracán, 1981.
Los irrespectuosos. Río Piedras, Puerto Rico: Ediciones Huracán, 2000.
Libertad y servidumbre en Puerto Rico del siglo XIX. Río Piedras, Puerto Rico: Ediciones Huracán, 1983.
Puerto Rico 1898: The War After the War. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2014.
Puerto Rico, tierra adentro y mar afuera: Historia y cultura de los puertorruqeños. With Carmen Rivera Izcoa. Río Piedras, Puerto Rico: Ediciones Huracán, 1991.
The following books by Carmelo Rosarío Natal:
Éxodo puertorriqueño: Las emigraciones al Caribe y Hawaii, 1900–1915. San Juan, Puerto Rico: Carmelo Rosarío Natal, 1983.
Los pobres del 98 puertorriqueño: Lo que le pasó a la gente. San Juan, Puerto Rico: Producciones Históricas, 1998.
Puerto Rico y la crisis de la Guerra Hispanoamerica, 1895–1898. Hato Rey, Puerto Rico: Ramallo Brothers Printing, 1975.
El puertorriqueño dócil: Historia, pasión, y muerte de un mito. San Juan, Puerto Rico: 1987.
Carr, Norma. The Puerto Ricans in Hawaii, 1900–1958. PhD dissertation, University of Hawaii, 1989.
Carroll, Henry K. Report on the Island of Porto Rico. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1899.
Davis, George W. Report of the Military Governor of Porto Rico on Civil Affairs, 1899–1900. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1902.
Dinwiddie, William. Puerto Rico: Its Conditions and Possibilities. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1899.
Souza, Blase Camacho. Papers, 1989–2003. Archives of the Puerto Rican Diaspora, Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños, Hunter College, City University of New York.
Takaki, Ronald. Pau Hana: Plantation Life and Labor in Hawaii, 1835–1920. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983.
Wagenheim, Kal, and Olga Jiménez de Wagenheim, eds. The Puerto Ricans: A Documentary History. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1999.
ALSO BY MARISEL VERA
If I Bring You Roses
This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Marisel Vera
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Names: Vera, Marisel, author.
Title: The taste of sugar : a novel / Marisel Vera.
Description: First Edition. | New York, NY : Liveright Publishing
Corporation, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019056388 | ISBN 9781631497735 (hardcover) |
ISBN 9781631497742 (epub)
Subjects: GSAFD: Love stories.
Classification: LCC PS3622.E7 T37 2020 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
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