Spiks

For some strange reason, we never finished Pedro Juan Soto's Spiks during a past obsession with Puerto Rico and the Diaspora a few years ago. This time around, we devoured the slim collection of short stories and vignettes of Puerto Rican life in New York City. As the title suggests, these stories focus on ghetto life and the crushing poverty, dilapidated housing, and lack of opportunities for Puerto Rican migrants established in Harlem. Stories deal with themes of becoming an adult, frustrated romance, migration, the breakup of families, lack of work, English classrooms in school and failed dreams. Of all these tales, the most effective story is probably "Scribbles." The brief work perfectly encapsulates what happens when ambition and marital love are brutally confronted by the realities of life in New York. The father of the family will never become an artist and his one attempt to express his feelings for his wife through his talent are abruptly terminated by Graciela. Sadly the canvas of his planned artwork becomes a "wide and clear gravestone of his dreams." This is an apt description of the New York experience for more than a few of those earlier generations of migrants from Puerto Rico.