When I was Puerto Rican Photo Journal

These are just some of the mental images that came to my mind while reading the wonderful book , "When I was Puerto Rican" by : Esmeralda Santiago

The Youngest Doll reflection

The story was set in Puerto Rico in the era in which the old sugar cane aristocracy was giving way to the new industrial wealth, each class patriarchal in its own way, "The Youngest Doll" has a doctor-patient scene showing how social classes use their power and, in particular, how they use women as objects. Males with a prawn bite would probably have been cured, without even having to ask for cure; research studies would have been done, if necessary, to find cures. A woman was not treated, however, even when a cure was possible. The patient is reduced to a mere commodity and nothing else; the physician uses the aunt's treatment payments to fund his son's education.
This symbolism of woman as object is made particularly clear in the young doctor's using both his wife and her doll. But the aunt encourages her nieces' helplessness and even sacrifices her youngest niece in order to get even with the physicians, both of whom refuse to cure her. This story really hit home to me because I can relate it to the Caste system back home where I live in India. Women are looked at as people that stay home and do no work except watching the children. In this story we can really see the struggle of whether the physician wants to cure someone from the bottom of his heart or not.