SIERRA:

"Mom, come quick!" I called that February evening where my twin brother and I were watching the news.

"Coming..." Mom darted over to the den and sure enough, the historic news was Puerto Rico.

"...today, President Ginsberg signed over the treaty and has granted Puerto Rico its independence from the United States," the newscaster announced.

"Wow!" Ben whooped. We watched as other commentators came on.

"What's remarkable is that Puerto Rico won its revolution without a single life being taken or any bloodshed whatsoever," one commentator marveled.

"I wonder if Aunt Mary Anne's watching this!" I said excitedly.

"If not, I'm sure she'll hear about it soon," Mom told us. Incredible. Puerto Rico was now a free country! The news flashed onto the streets of Puerto Rico, where bells rang, citizens celebrated and cheered in the streets, and confetti flew. "Puerto Rican Americans must be so proud," Mom added softly, putting an arm around each of us. It was almost dinner, so we watched a few minutes longer and sure enough, the camera showed groups of Puerto Rican Americans celebrating in the Spanish Harlem area of New York City. Then we reluctantly turned off the TV and went to eat. As we were finishing, the phone rang and sure enough, it was Aunt Mary Anne.

"Yes, isn't it wonderful?" Mom asked. "They must be thrilled up there...I can imagine...I guess it must have been like this for India when it won its independence from England almost a hundred years ago...wow, yes...I can see you have tears of happiness for the people of Puerto Rico...their new president's picked out and everything...yeah, Sandra Ginsberg's sharp and knew when to sign the treaty..." Mom and her stepsister talked a little longer, then Ben and I talked to our cousins and aunt as well. Aunt Mary Anne was indeed so happy she was crying.

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ANNIE:

Mom, my sister and I let out a whoop once we'd gotten the news on Puerto Rico being a free nation. Mom called Kristy right away and we could hear Kristy bellow, "YYYYESSSS!" right through the receiver. Shortly after that, Liza called and they talked a while.

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Most of the kids had gotten the news, so it was all the kids talked about in Current Events the next day. Some kids thought the States should have fought harder to retain the island, others like Linda and me agreed that it was good to release Puerto Rico.

"But think, now the people there will lose the economic support," Gina Vinson put in. "And our country will have a harder time trading things like sugar cane. Sugar's now going to be more expensive."

"They prepared for this," Linda countered. "President Ginsberg even made the transfer slowly, so they could be economically self-sufficient. And we get sugar from a lot of other islands like Haiti and the Philippines as well as Vietnam and Central America." We debated on until the class was over.

"One thing people in the Caribbean don't see is snow," Linda told me as we started home that afternoon.

"Yeah," I nodded. It had snowed last week and now a light snowfall was coming down again, being February.

"Did New York get snow when you were over there over the holidays?" Linda asked. She knew I'd spent the winter break at Mary Anne's place in the Big Apple.

"Yeah," I kicked up a chunk of snow. "Some years it gets snow and other years it doesn't. If not for the winter holidays, they usually get it in January or February."

"Probably because the city is close to the sea," Linda added.

"Heeey, wait up!" Snow flew past us and Michelle scurried to catch up with us. Then we started home together. "I hope there's a blizzard tonight," she told us. We all laughed, figuring it would give us a break from school if we got a huge snowstorm.

"Even though I'd never live there, I'd love to visit Puerto Rico some day," I told my friends.

"Me too," Michelle agreed. "It's a really beautiful island."

"Me too, but I'd do it in the spring or summer," Linda added.

"Now we'd have to get passports if we ever visit Puerto Rico," I said. "I wonder if a lot of their people speak English."

"I think so, since it was under American control for so long," Michelle put in. "I wonder if the American influence will stay now the Puerto Rico is an independent country."

"Probably some of it will," Linda told us. "Even in the Philippines, they still have some things in English and some American restaurants there."

"They probably have a few British places in India," I added. We'd seen an old series *Jewel in the Crown* on video and it was partly about the British and India and the Indian fight for its independence from England. In time, England realized its time in India was up and withdrew peacefully. It had been a good, very historically accurate series. I figured maybe ten or twenty years from now, people would be making series and movies on the Puerto Rican fight for independence from the States.

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TAMARA:

Mom, my sister, Mona and her daughter Zara went out to eat that Friday evening. It was a really cold February evening, so we had to wear our thick jackets and gloves. We'd gotten a snowstorm in late January and it looked like we might get another one this weekend. We decided to eat at a Puerto Rican place to celebrate Puerto Rico's newfound independence. As we expected, there were a lot of people there to celebrate and we waited a while for a table.

"To Puerto Rico's freedom," Mona said softly once we sat and had our sodas.

"To Puerto Rico's freedom," we all chimed in and clinked glasses, toasting the birth of a new nation and a new neighbor. Sandra Ginsberg had really handled that transition beautifully, I thought as our food came and we dug in. All around us, we heard a lot of Spanish-speakers. That's not unusual, being the New York City has a high Spanish-speaking population. I knew Mona had taken Spanish in high school and I wondered if she remembered any of it. I myself was in my first year of Spanish and was able to catch a few words here and there, but not enough to understand what the conversations were about. I know Caribbean Spanish is different from South American Spanish and from Spaniard Spanish. Just like British English is different from American English, I thought. My class itself has a lot of Puerto Rican Americans, but most of them speak just English since their families go several generations back.

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"Mom..." I called as I headed to the garage where she was working on her car. "The letter about Stoneybrook's dedication ceremony came...I put it on your desk."

"Thank you, dear," Mom called back from under the hood of her car. She opened the oil valve, checked it, put some more oil in and closed the valve. She emerged from under the hood. "I wonder how many of my old classmates are actually going to be there." She sat and I sat beside her and we looked out at the frosty sunlight filtering in from outside. It had snowed on Sunday night and today, Monday, we'd gotten a day off school. "What a lovely wintry day," Mom said softly, putting an arm around me. Her voice still sounds a bit strange from that awful cold she'd had back in December, but either I was getting used to it or maybe her voice was slowly getting back to the way it was before. Her voice has always been kind of soft and rather deep, but it sounds huskier now; I hope that cold didn't do permanent damage to her vocal cords. That happened to one of my teachers back in middle school; she caught a bad cold and cough and when she recovered, her voice sounded different and was never quite the same.

"Yeah," I nodded and put my head on her shoulder. "The sky seems bluer this way and I love how it just bounces off the snow."

"Did it say when...?" Mom started.

"I think the cover said around April?" I told her.

"That's good," Mom nodded. "Maybe it'll be in time for spring break." I was looking forward to this dedication too; I had the feeling it would be a re-union of sorts and I wondered if I'd meet a lot of Mom's old classmates there.


More later, including the ceremony to officially mark Stoneybrook as a small city!