ON THE ETHICS AND POETICS OF HOW WE MAKE OUR LIVES: ESMERALDA SANTIAGO AND THE IMPROVISATION OF IDENTITY

This interpretive essay explores the early memoirs of Esmeralda Santiago, When I was Puerto Rican and Almost a Woman, to show how narrative literature contributes to understanding how lives unfold as improvised ethical and aesthetic projects. Santiago's storied inventions are cast as relating more to oppositional ethics than to ideological struggle. Santiago pursues the life she owes to herself, not the life she owes to others. The ethical lapses in Santiago's life-making process are construed as the necessary improvised tactics individuals are constrained to make when fabricating a life with the culture and history they inherit.