Spider Plant

Carmen Santos came to New York from rural Puerto Rico. Her adjustment to the city is therefore a little more difficult than it would be for any small town girl coming to New York. The fact that she is Puerto Rican and speaks Spanish are small factors that can engage any reader's sense of separateness, so that reader identification outside the special group need not be a problem.... Carmen's show more spider plant, raised from a slip, becomes both the symbol and the active agent of Carmen's ability to accept change. Her urge to cling to the familiar and suspect the unknown is well captured here and so are the particular discomforts of being poor in a big city. That this need not mean desperation or squalor is also well handled. show less