THEY CALL ME JACK: The Story of a Boy From Puerto Rico

by Sandra Weiner ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1973

Jacinto's vividly idiomatic and achingly honest first-person story of his move from his barrio in Puerto Rico to East Harlem stands as a reproach to the packaged banalities we have come to expect from the photo-essay genre. There are painful moments when ""Jack"" recalls his brief experience with glue sniffing (""suddenly you feel like hurting somebody real hard and you laugh at that"") and worries about his father's drinking (""He liked my mother very much and it makes him miserable to remember that she is dead""). But these are balanced by pleasant memories of his old home -- the school songs, flowers and food (particularly his mother's flan, ""a rich man's dessert, even though we were not rich"") and by his good humor and pride in coping with life in the streets of New York. Each new incident -- playing basketball with a blind man he befriends, discovering the books in the library of his new school, releasing a captured butterfly before boarding the plane after a visit home -- establish Jacinto as a tremendously warm and observant person -- never merely a pipeline for sociological platitudes. Despite the inclusion of a few self-consciously ""artistic"" compositions, the black and white photographs are well above the usual standard.

Pub Date: May 1, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Pantheon

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1973

Categories: NONFICTION