Me Llamo María Isabel

Ada, Alma Flor. Me Llamo María Isabel. New York: Libros Colibrí, 1993.

Written in Spanish, but also available in English under the title My Name is Maria Isabel, this sixty-page novel tells the story of a young girl and her struggles to adjust after moving from Puerto Rico to a school in New York that allowed students to learn in Spanish to a school in which she was expected to speak only English. Ada clearly marks this transition with a teacher who changes María Isabel's name to Mary, a distressing and confusing change for the child.

Through this text, Alma Flor Ada, a native of Cuba, shares the daily life of a Puerto Rican family without preaching or prescribing. The plot is simple and uncrowded, told in the uncomplicatedly elegant language of a young girl finding her place in a new environment. I am concerned that it is set in New York, as so many books about Chicanos and Riqueños seem to be (there is even a term for Puerto Ricans in and around NYC: Nuyorican), but as this experience should resonate with many students who have lived in or visited family in New York, I am putting it in the category of generalization instead of stereotype. Overall, this is a text that I would be proud to stock in my classroom or hand to colleagues who wonder how their students from other countries feel.