The Taste of Sugar: A Novel
Reading The Taste of Sugar will make you hang your head over what America has done to Puerto Rico these past 100+ years: the exploitation and land-grabbing and broken promises and treatment of its residents like animals or worse, like human chattel to enrich the white man’s bank account. If your insides don’t twist with shame and anger as you read what could be a beautiful love story—what should be that—but instead lays bare how white privilege, greed, and patriarchy shatter brown lives and destroy good people’s dreams—then you have only a dark void where your soul should be.
The story begins just before the turn of the 20th century when the adventuresome 17-year-old Valentina meets the handsome young coffee farmer Vicente Vega. Valentina, who dreams of Paris, gives herself over to the hard life of a farmer’s wife. Vicente is passionate about two things: coffee and Valentina, and their love sustains them through the hard times that follow.
When the island’s oppressor, Spain, loses the Spanish-American War, American rule turns out to be even more crushing. A hurricane demolishes the Vegas’ farm, and no help is forthcoming from the U.S. government—does this sound familiar? Unable to earn a living, Vicente and Valentina move to Hawaii to work in the sugar cane fields, lured by promises of a better life. Instead they must work in brutal conditions and live in squalor and filth, too poor to leave. What they do next is breathtaking, a testament to human resilience, and pitch-perfect in the #BlackLivesMatter era. Brown lives matter, too.
This beautiful, inspiring tale of love and courage had me rooting and cheering for the characters, longing to read more by Marisel Vera, and yes, hanging my head in shame over our treatment of the people of Puerto Rico. I highly recommend it.
