When I started reading this seven-dollar booklet with Martí’s readings, I felt lost in a “muchedumbre”. There were so many foreign phrases, new vocabulary words, and colloquialisms that I was well, frankly, lost through quite a large portion of the booklet. I was convinced after the first three pages that reading this booklet would be like trying to board the 99-B line at rush hour in the morning…impossible without pushing through( however, I do appreciate though that these were short stories, unlike “Who Would Have Thought It?”).

I actually ended up quite enjoying these somewhat simple and civilian stories. I’m a big sucker for description, and Martí really hit the spot. His observations of the society encircling him at the time tell me he didn’t really have to have inspiration hit him like a bolt of lightening. Instead, he could find beauty and become inspired just (literally) going to work or looking out his front window. We encounter this for the first time two pages into the booklet, when Martí describes his neighbouring “neoyorquinos”:

“…Se apiñan hoy como entre tajos vecinos del tope a lo hondo en el corazón de una montaña, hebreos de perfil agudo y ojos ávidos, irlandeses joviales, alemanes carnosos y recios, escoceses son rosados y fornidos, hungaros bellos, negros lojosos, rusos,—de ojos que queman, noruegos de pelo rojo, japoneses elegantes, enjutos e indiferentes chinos” (Marti, “El Puente De Brooklyn”: 424).

I love that Martí’s readings really encapsulate the “immigrant” experience of being in a new place and having to work and come together as a community of different backgrounds to build something as astonishing s the Brooklyn Bridge. I really do feel this work could have been translated into any language and distributed to anywhere in the world during Marti’s life span, and it would have been interesting and inspiring for all.

I believe strongly that building a bridge, at least in Marti’s experience, was more than just a physical accomplishment…it was something that bridged all the neoyorquinos together.