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Usmail
316 p., 22 cm. Spanish language
Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 27, 2009
I enjoyed this book because I am familiar with Vieques and its history, however, some of it may have been lost in translation.
February 27, 2021
I loved reading this book (in Spanish) in High School (in PR). The rawness of the protagonist's feelings about looking different than his peers and his yearning for an identity and finding himself resonates with and echoes in the beings of many throughout history in all corners of the world. Society has been cruel and unforgiving, sometimes punishing the innocent for the sins of their predecessors, creating deeper wounds, marginalizing and cutting off the wings of many of God's creations. I would love to say that we have completely evolved as a society since Usmail was written, certainly there has been progress, but we can and need to do better. This book helped instill in me, at a young age, a desire nd commitment to be part of what's good around me, be accepting and less judgmental. We do not know what troubles others; we are all troubled by something. How can you not be when there is so much suffering and injustice around you, around us all, as there was around Usmail.
dnf-or-unhauled
November 27, 2022Only read a few chapters.
Why I DNF? I was assigned to read it at school. The teacher only assigned us to read a few chapters and I wasn't interested enough to continue it on my own time.
Why I DNF? I was assigned to read it at school. The teacher only assigned us to read a few chapters and I wasn't interested enough to continue it on my own time.
June 19, 2013
--From my 2007 review in the San Juan Star--
Before Vieques became a cause celebre for Al Sharpton, Edward James Olmos, Bobby Kennedy Jr., et al, there was Nana Luisa and there was Chefa Laugier and, above all, there was Usmaíl.
Sharpton, Olmos and Kennedy were the most noted celebrity-protagonists in the demonstrations several years ago against the Navy’s live bombing and shelling on that offshore Puerto Rican island of some 9,000 residents. They received ample coverage in the national media for their protests before the Navy packed up and moved its war games onto computer screens in other parts of the free world.
Nana Luisa, Chefa and Usmaíl are the principal fictional characters who give a literary dimension to the plight of the viequenses in their contact with the americanos in the 1930s, '40s and '50s.
The novel is Usmaíl by the late Puerto Rican author Pedro Juan Soto , who was way ahead of the curve about the troubles in Vieques when the book was published in 1959.
Usmaíl recently appeared for the first time in an English-language translation, published by Sombrero Publishing Company in St. John of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
For the unaware, the novel portrays the miserable conditions lived daily by the grownups on la isla nena during the Depression and continuing into the Operation Bootstrap years, when the big island of Puerto Rico was experiencing a mini-economic boom while the little island some 10 miles off the southeast coast was undergoing a maxi-sonic boom of Navy guns.
As it is now, the ambivalence of the U.S.- Puerto Rico relationship was in full swing over half a century ago, according to Soto, who writes: "On the one hand, [there were] those who were not willing to give up the land to the americanos, on the other, those who were willing to give up the whole island for democracy. Looked at from this point of view the intention of the Government was admirable, to uphold such beautiful ideals for the human race; although apparently the residents of Vieques were not part of the human race, because such ideals were put aside to impose that plan."
The Americans portrayed in the novel are one-dimensional, just as the viequenses appear to have been seen by the U.S. and Puerto Rican governments in real life when they sent many of the residents packing so that two-thirds of the island could be taken over for war maneuvers.
Usmaíl is the ironically poignant name given to the boy born to a poor black woman living on "the colony of a colony." The boy was fathered by a certain Mr. Adams, the U.S. government official sent by Washington to dole out surplus food, clothes and a job or two to the close-to starving natives.
Chefa Laugier is sure her lover, who headed for Splitsville after he made her pregnant, will come back to her one day, and she haunts the Post Office waiting for a letter from him. She waits and she waits and becomes a ghostly figure in the Post Office doorway. When she gives birth she names her son after the printing on the mail containers she sees while waiting with hope against hope for her gringo savior who, needless to say, neither writes nor appears in person.
Chefa dies soon after childbirth and Usmaíl is brought up by Nana Luisa, who is a wonderful character. She's kind and wise and people come to her for food and medical treatment and spiritualist advice. Although Nana Luisa deeply and truly believes in nada, she doesn't let any of the faithful go away hungry. She clearly sees humanity for all the bad - and good - it is capable of.
"She put the disaster down to Cebute. What else could she say aloud if everybody preferred to believe in malignant spirits? She had no choice but to invent a particular mythology to discharge the blame that Man was not ready to recognize as his own, the execution of glorious action that he did not believe worthy of his own potential and wished to call miracles."
Usmaíl, keenly aware of being a mulatto, of possessing what he considers a ridiculous name and of trying to exist in an overtaken homeland, grows up mostly bitter. His bitterness leads to his downfall, which seems sad rather than tragic because, for this reader at least, there's a certain coldness at the center of his overheated heart. Is it nature or colonialist nurture that made Usmaíl that way? Could be both. Who knows? Maybe that's what Pedro Juan Soto wanted us to figure out.
Before Vieques became a cause celebre for Al Sharpton, Edward James Olmos, Bobby Kennedy Jr., et al, there was Nana Luisa and there was Chefa Laugier and, above all, there was Usmaíl.
Sharpton, Olmos and Kennedy were the most noted celebrity-protagonists in the demonstrations several years ago against the Navy’s live bombing and shelling on that offshore Puerto Rican island of some 9,000 residents. They received ample coverage in the national media for their protests before the Navy packed up and moved its war games onto computer screens in other parts of the free world.
Nana Luisa, Chefa and Usmaíl are the principal fictional characters who give a literary dimension to the plight of the viequenses in their contact with the americanos in the 1930s, '40s and '50s.
The novel is Usmaíl by the late Puerto Rican author Pedro Juan Soto , who was way ahead of the curve about the troubles in Vieques when the book was published in 1959.
Usmaíl recently appeared for the first time in an English-language translation, published by Sombrero Publishing Company in St. John of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
For the unaware, the novel portrays the miserable conditions lived daily by the grownups on la isla nena during the Depression and continuing into the Operation Bootstrap years, when the big island of Puerto Rico was experiencing a mini-economic boom while the little island some 10 miles off the southeast coast was undergoing a maxi-sonic boom of Navy guns.
As it is now, the ambivalence of the U.S.- Puerto Rico relationship was in full swing over half a century ago, according to Soto, who writes: "On the one hand, [there were] those who were not willing to give up the land to the americanos, on the other, those who were willing to give up the whole island for democracy. Looked at from this point of view the intention of the Government was admirable, to uphold such beautiful ideals for the human race; although apparently the residents of Vieques were not part of the human race, because such ideals were put aside to impose that plan."
The Americans portrayed in the novel are one-dimensional, just as the viequenses appear to have been seen by the U.S. and Puerto Rican governments in real life when they sent many of the residents packing so that two-thirds of the island could be taken over for war maneuvers.
Usmaíl is the ironically poignant name given to the boy born to a poor black woman living on "the colony of a colony." The boy was fathered by a certain Mr. Adams, the U.S. government official sent by Washington to dole out surplus food, clothes and a job or two to the close-to starving natives.
Chefa Laugier is sure her lover, who headed for Splitsville after he made her pregnant, will come back to her one day, and she haunts the Post Office waiting for a letter from him. She waits and she waits and becomes a ghostly figure in the Post Office doorway. When she gives birth she names her son after the printing on the mail containers she sees while waiting with hope against hope for her gringo savior who, needless to say, neither writes nor appears in person.
Chefa dies soon after childbirth and Usmaíl is brought up by Nana Luisa, who is a wonderful character. She's kind and wise and people come to her for food and medical treatment and spiritualist advice. Although Nana Luisa deeply and truly believes in nada, she doesn't let any of the faithful go away hungry. She clearly sees humanity for all the bad - and good - it is capable of.
"She put the disaster down to Cebute. What else could she say aloud if everybody preferred to believe in malignant spirits? She had no choice but to invent a particular mythology to discharge the blame that Man was not ready to recognize as his own, the execution of glorious action that he did not believe worthy of his own potential and wished to call miracles."
Usmaíl, keenly aware of being a mulatto, of possessing what he considers a ridiculous name and of trying to exist in an overtaken homeland, grows up mostly bitter. His bitterness leads to his downfall, which seems sad rather than tragic because, for this reader at least, there's a certain coldness at the center of his overheated heart. Is it nature or colonialist nurture that made Usmaíl that way? Could be both. Who knows? Maybe that's what Pedro Juan Soto wanted us to figure out.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews