The Color of My Words

“Mami’s slap will last a lifetime. What if I write what I want while I am still a river flowing around the rocks in my Island?” 

When Mami slaps Ana Rosa for saying that Papi just sits on the porch drinking rum, it is both a formative moment in Ana Rosa’s self-understanding as well as a foreshadowing of events to come. Ana Rosa begins to wrestle, after this interaction, with the question of how to be a river “flowing around the rocks” while still doing what she wants. She wants to exercise her own will without disrupting the peace of her life too much. Mami’s slap is a reminder to Ana Rosa that she is not in power yet.

“As Mami herself said, there always has to be a first person to do something.” 

This is Ana Rosa’s reflection at the end of Chapter 1, as she begins gathering the strength and inspiration to become a “first person to do something” as a writer. Ana Rosa’s description of “as Mami herself said” is an important illustration of the way that a young person might connect their own ideas and desires to their internal map of family relationships and understandings. Since Mami has said it “herself,” Ana Rosa is more readily able to internalize this idea and bridge it to her own conclusions about what she can and cannot do.