America Gonzalez is a hotel housekeeper on an island off the coast of Puerto Rico, cleaning up after wealthy foreigners who don't look her in the eye. Her alcoholic mother resents her, her married boyfriend, Correa, beats her, and their fourteen-year-old daughter thinks life would be better anywhere but with America. So when America is offered the chance to work as a live-in housekeeper and nanny for a family in Westchester County, New York, she takes it as a sign that a door to escape has been opened. Life in Westchester seems strange, though, to someone who has never left the tropical island where she was born. America quickly learns from the other housekeepers in her neighborhood that the superficial perfection of life in the suburbs is easily scratched. And even as America revels in the comparative luxury of her new life, daring to care about a man other than Correa, she fights to resist the feeling that no matter what she does, she can't get away from her past.

America's Dream

Literature & Fiction

Santiago, Esmeralda

United States

Harpercollins

Ame+a7rica Gonzales sees an opportunity to start her life anew when a Westchester family offers her a job as a live-in nanny, but despite her comparatively luxurious lifestyle, she cannot forget a painful past of resentment, abuse, and abandonment on her native island off the coast of Puerto Rico.

El Sueno De America / the American Dream (Spanish Edition)

América Gonzales es empleada de un hotel en una isla en la costa de Puerto Rico, donde limpia los cuartos de extranjeros ricos que miran de reojo. Su madre alcohólica le tiene resentimiento...su novio Correa, quien es casado le pega...y su hija de catorce años piensa que su vida seria mejor en cualquier otro lugar menos donde esté America.Asi que cuando le ofrecen la oportunidad de trabajar como criada y niñera para una familia en el municipio de Weschester,  Nueva York,  America cree que ha encontrado una puerta de escape. Pero al mismo tiempo en que disfruta del lujo relativo de su nueva vida atreviéndose incluso a querer a otro hombre que no sea Correa, América tiene que luchar contra la constante sensación de que nunca podra escapar su pasado, no importa lo que haga.

El Sueno de America

Literary

Rayo

America’s Dream is the Fifth selection in the inaugural launch of RAYO’s master comtemporary classic series. Told with a wry sense of humor, this novel explores issues associated with becoming an American, and exemplifies the spirit of RAYO, every Hispanic American, and any other immigrant who has dared to realize the American dream. América Gonzalez is a hotel housekeeper on Vieques, an island off the coast of Puerto Rico, cleaning up after wealthy foreigners who don’t look her In the eye. Her alcoholic mother resents her; her married boyfriend, Correa, beats her; and their fourteen-year-old daughter thinks life would be better anywhere but with América. So when América is offered the chance to work as a live-in housekeeper and nanny for a family in Westchester County, New York, she takes it as a sign that a door to escape has been opened. Yet even as América revels in the comparative luxury of her new life, daring to care about a man other than Correa, she is faced with dramatic proof that no matter what she does, she can’t get away from her past.

Harper-perennial

América Gonzales es empleada de un hotel en una isla en la costa de Puerto Rico, donde limpia los cuartos de extranjeros ricos que miran de reojo. Su madre alcohólica le tiene resentimiento. . . su novio Correa, quien es casado le pega. . . y su hija de catorce años piensa que su vida seria mejor en cualquier otro lugar menos donde esté America.Asi que cuando le ofrecen la oportunidad de trabajar como criada y niñera para una familia en el municipio de Weschester, Nueva York, America cree que ha encontrado una puerta de escape. Pero al mismo tiempo en que disfruta del lujo relativo de su nueva vida atreviéndose incluso a querer a otro hombre que no sea Correa, América tiene que luchar contra la constante sensación de que nunca podra escapar su pasado, no importa lo que haga.

El sueño de América

"Lyrical [and] haunting, América’s liberating epiphany will have readers . . . on their feet and cheering." — Washington Post 
Deftly written and fiercely resilient, América’s Dream explores the ever-shifting definition of what it means to be American and exemplifies the spirit of every immigrant who has dared to realize the American dream. 
América Gonzalez is a hotel housekeeper on Vieques, an island off the coast of Puerto Rico, cleaning up after wealthy foreigners who don’t look her in the eye. Her alcoholic mother resents her; her married boyfriend, Correa, beats her; and their fourteen-year-old daughter thinks life would be better anywhere but with América. So when América is offered the chance to work as a live-in housekeeper and nanny for a family in Westchester, New York, she takes it as a sign to finally make the escape she's been longing for.\nYet, even as América revels in the comparative luxury of her new life—daring to care about a man other than Correa—she is faced with the disquieting realization that no matter what she does, she can never really escape her past.

America's Dream: A Novel

Dramas & Plays

When I Was Puerto Rican

Magic, sexual tension, high comedy, and intense drama move through an enchanted yet harsh life chronicle, as a young girl leaves rural Puerto Rico for New York's tenements and a chance for success. 20,000 first printing.

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Addison-Wesley

Enthralled admirers of Esmeralda Santiago's memoirs of her childhood have yearned to read more. Now, in The Turkish Lover, Esmeralda finally breaks out of the monumental struggle with her powerful mother, only to elope into the spell of an exotic love affair. At the heart of the story is Esmeralda's relationship with "the Turk," a passion that gradually becomes a prison out of which she must emerge to become herself. The expansive humanity, earthy humor, and psychological courage that made Esmeralda's first two books so successful are on full display again in The Turkish Lover.

The Turkish Lover: A Memoir (A Merloyd Lawrence Book)

Da Capo Press

One of "The Best Memoirs of a Generation" (Oprah's Book Club): a young woman's journey from the mango groves and barrios of Puerto Rico to Brooklyn, and eventually on to Harvard In a childhood full of tropical beauty and domestic strife, poverty and tenderness, Esmeralda Santiago learned the proper way to eat a guava, the sound of tree frogs, the taste of morcilla, and the formula for ushering a dead baby's soul to heaven. But when her mother, Mami, a force of nature, takes off to New York with her seven, soon to be eleven children, Esmeralda, the oldest, must learn new rules, a new language, and eventually a new identity. In the first of her three acclaimed memoirs, Esmeralda brilliantly recreates her tremendous journey from the idyllic landscape and tumultuous family life of her earliest years, to translating for her mother at the welfare office, and to high honors at Harvard.

When I Was Puerto Rican: A Memoir (A Merloyd Lawrence Book)

Arts & Literature

Following the enchanting story recounted in When I Was Puerto Rican of the author’s emergence from the barrios of Brooklyn to the prestigious Performing Arts High School in Manhattan, Esmeralda Santiago delivers the tale of her young adulthood, where she continually strives to find a balance between becoming American and staying Puerto Rican. While translating for her mother Mami at the welfare office in the morning, starring as Cleopatra at New York’s prestigious Performing Arts High School in the afternoons, and dancing salsa all night, she begins to defy her mother’s protective rules, only to find that independence brings new dangers and dilemmas.

Almost a Woman (A Merloyd Lawrence Book)

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Books by Santiago, Esmeralda

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Santiago, Esmeralda. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

America's Dream

El Sueno De America / the American Dream (Spanish Edition)

El Sueno de America

America's Dream

El sueño de América

America's Dream: A Novel

When I Was Puerto Rican

The Turkish Lover: A Memoir (A Merloyd Lawrence Book)

When I Was Puerto Rican: A Memoir (A Merloyd Lawrence Book)

Almost a Woman (A Merloyd Lawrence Book)