READING PUERTO RICAN MIGRATION IN THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ANTONIA PANTOJA 81

 In reflecting on the four stages of Pantoja's text, the importance of place
becomes apparent. At its root, migration is often triggered by a conflict in
the place of origin that builds momentum for movement. Defining home as
the place where one most belongs is one of the chief accomplishments of
Pantoja's migration narrative.

Memoirs of a Visionary as a Migration Narrative

I turn now to a discussion of Pantoja's book as a Puerto Rican migration
narrative beginning with a discussion of a seminal Puerto Rican migration
text, the play La Carreta ("The Oxcart"), an important precursor to Pantoja's
text that contributes to my reading of Memoirs of a Visionary.
 La Carreta, written by Ren6 Marqu6s in the early 1950s, was first produced
in 1954 in New York City.7 It was one of the first literary texts to reach large
audiences in New York with a reflection on the period of the Great Migration,
understood as the post-World War II period of migration. The play follows
the movement of one rural family, a family that is unable to adjust to the
changes in the agricultural economy of Puerto Rico and has over-mortgaged
their farm. The only choice they perceive is to relinquish their land and
move from the mountains to a slum in San Juan, and then to New York City.
They leave their rural home by packing their possessions on an oxcart, la
carreta. In Marqu6s' play, the classic conflict of the rural person meeting the
urban industrialized place, whether it is in Puerto Rico or in New York,
emerges in the perceived corruption of the family's children. The youngest
son immediately ends up in a San Juan jail for petty thievery. The only
daughter in the family is raped, although it is a crime that she can't name
while still living in Puerto Rico. Arriving in New York, the motif of corruption
is extended as there is a suggestion that the daughter has become a sexually
loose woman, perhaps even a prostitute. The oldest brother attempts to
continue to play the role of the family patriarch, but the industrial machine
that he so admires in New York ultimately destroys him. The daughter and
the mother, finally able to make decisions independent y about their lives,
leave the metropolis and return to rural Puerto Rico.
 This short synopsis of La Carreta follows closely Griffin's discussion of
the structure of elements present in many African American migration
narratives. Among these are five: first, the catalyzing event that leads to the
departure of the migrant; second, the nature of the encounter with the new
northern environment, often an encounter characterized by conflict; third,
the migrant's new sense of the possibilities and limitations of the city; fourth,
the migrants resistance to the negative effects of the city; and finally, the
possibility of return home.
 In addition toLa Carreta, other Puerto Rican migration narratives in which
this structure of migration experiences occurs include The Memoirs of
Bernardo Vega; When I was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago, and Silent