Antonio’s will was cursed. Not once, but twice.
No person … shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law …- Fifth Amendment, United States Constit...
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district...
He woke up to knocks on his door. “Just a minute!” he said out loud. “I’m coming!”He got up and straightened himself as he opened the door.“Besi!” he said, overcome with emotion.He held her and never...
Antonio could not stop thinking about Dean Fiero’s words during his welcoming speech, “Look to your left; now to your right. One of you will not be here in 1915!” These words were used to intimidate f...
Do you know who Samuel Langhorne Clemens is, Antonio?” Bessie asked.“No, chood I?” he said. “He is best known as Mark Twain, the author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” she said.“I have herd of the s...
Her heart now pounding, a strange feeling of combined fear and happiness invaded her. She took a deep breath. Her lungs filled with fresh air. An invigorating rush of electricity all over her body ove...
All Americans were immigrants at one point or another,” he explained in his letters to his parents. Even his father Manuel migrated to Puerto Rico. Manuel was deemed a Peninsular, an immigrant from Sp...
As the children left, Antonio shifted his gaze towards his father and gently waved at his family, while they returned the gesture.With half a smile and a tight lip, Antonio’s green eyes spoke, “Adiós”...
¡Ay, las faldas!” (“Oh, the skirts!”) he sighed, shaking his head and winking with a mischievous smile. While admitting women were his “Achilles heel,” Antonio, as many young men of the times did, als...
It’s over,” said Carmona to the town’s men at the casa alcaldía (city hall). “Word is that the United States Flag is waving in Guánica, Coamo and at El Morro and San Cristóbal Castles in San Juan. Pue...
The United States media is advocating for the country to go to battle with Spain and take over Cuba and Puerto Rico to gain advantage over the Atlantic,” said Manuel. “They have swayed public opinion....
¡Zape! (Shoo!) Go away, go away, espíritu maligno (bad spirit)!” they sang. “Go back to where you came from!”The festive musical celebration combined the prayers and songs with expressive dancing to t...
And then there was nature’s music. The small frog the locals called coquí was a treasured new sound, a lullaby sung by the chanting Puerto Rican native species. Sometimes, while he lay in bed awake at...
Manuel adapted well to the Puerto Rican culture and its African and Taíno Indian influences, which permeated into the local language. Taíno words such as tabaco (tobacco), barbacoa (barbecue), canoa (...
Manuel acquired as much land as he could afford and refused to sell it to anyone, even if he was not planting anything on it. “La tierra no se acaba” (“the land does not perish”), he often said.
THEY CALLED HIM “Ponce de León” because he acted as though he could conquer anything and anyone. He enchanted every young woman that came his way with piropos (pick-up lines) and clever sweet talk. “H...
SHE RESEARCHED WHEN everyone slept. In the dead silence, her mind worked with more clarity. No interruptions, no worries. Sometimes she even imagined that her ancestors guided her. That they reached o...
¡Hundieron el Maine!” said Manuel to his wife Etervina, as he read the newspaper on February 16, 1898. “They sank the Maine!
Pardon me for this resolution … I know that this will be a disgrace that I bring to my people, but I cannot help it. Love is the blame for it. I go in peace ... pray for me ... good-bye all.
