A collection of writings that explores pain, love, youthful passion, and confusion, this anthology creates a broad spectrum of writing and of experiences, with selections ranging from the fond recollection of a peaceful atmosphere at the corner bodega to the chilling account of a girl witnessing the Ponce Massacre in 1937, or the poignant struggle of a grammar school boy living with his father's ethics a half century later in the South Bronx. In GROWING UP PUERTO RICAN, we are privy not only to the experiences of the young Puerto Rican, but to the coming of age of a literature, a culture, and a country with its visage fixed firmly on its own future.