Mother Island: A Daughter Claims Puerto Rico

Novelist Figueroa (Brother, Sister, Mother, Explorer) contemplates her mother’s childhood losses and her own tween years growing up in Ohio. Figueroa’s memoir starts as she ends a marriage, embarks on a journey to become a massage therapist, and begins writing about and deconstructing childhood memories to claim a place in her family’s history. As she explores the trauma that her mother experienced upon leaving Puerto Rico, she also considers Puerto Rico’s relationship with the U.S. mainland. Addressing topics of race, colonization, and assimilation, she taps into Boricua mythology, sharing the explorative work of other women writers of color along the way. Figueroa’s experiences as a mother guide her when she visits Puerto Rico to meet the relatives her mother left behind and charts a new course for herself. Listeners will be moved by the power and sincerity of the author’s measured voice as she narrates her poetic memoir of self-discovery; Kelle Rae Oien plays a supporting role.