In When I Was Puerto Rican, the words people use to describe others and themselves are a motif crucial to understanding their identities. When someone labels another person, that person loses the ability to make their own first impressions. For instance, early in the book, Esmeralda wants to be a jibara—someone from the country—more than anything. However, when she moves to a bigger city, her style of speech marks her as a jibara, and her mocking classmates use this against her. This loss of control of a label she once embraced speaks to broader anxieties about her identity and place in the world. 

Labels especially shape Esmeralda’s understanding of gender. In common parlance, women are divided into long-suffering mothers and wives, sexually provocative “putas,” and “jamonas,” women who are too old (and, it is implied, too ugly) to marry. With these the only forms of femininity to choose from, Esmeralda struggles to understand what kind of woman she wants to be. Men, meanwhile, are often called sinverguenzas, or “without shame.” The term is generally applied to the men who cheat on their wives or who abandon their families, and while it is disparaging, it reinforces the association between masculinity and sexual “conquest” in ways that contribute to the sexual harassment and violence Esmeralda experiences.