Diáspora : CMI-PR

by Manuel Hernandez

To be or not to be Puerto Rican, that is the question. Shakespearean Puerto Ricans have once again brought up the dilemma of who is and who is not Puerto Rican. With the United States 2000 Census revealing parallel numbers between Boricuas born on the Island and those born, raised or living on the Mainland, Felix Trinidad's objections and past comments on John Ruiz' origins shed light on the never-ending identity conflict amongst Puerto Ricans. Even with recent demonstrations of brotherhood and camaraderie in public demonstrations on theIsland by the so-called Nuyoricans, Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony and John Ruiz, the issue takes center-stage in daily discussions on the Island.

In his most recent concert in Madison Square Garden, Marc Anthony stated that he was a Puerto Rican and an American at the same time. One of the founders of the Nuyorican poetry movement, Sandra Maria Estevez, states in her poem "Here" that she is "two parts a person, boricua/spic, past and present, alive and oppressed". Jennifer Lopez has broken all paradigms and proudly displays the colors of the Puerto Rican flag in her never-ending videos on MTV and on interviews in international television. In one of his interviews this past February for a local newspaper on the Island, the heavy-weight boxing Champion of the World, John Ruiz bluntly stated that he was proud of being an American and a Puerto Rican. United States Ricans have a way of intertwining their dual identities and are not apprehensive about being bilingual and bicultural.

With tens of thousands of United States Ricans coming back to their homeland to retire and settle down, the situation will only develop into heights yet unknown to Boricuas-kind. The best-selling Puerto Rican author, Esmeralda Santiago, came back to Puerto Rico after thirteen years and was disappointed when her Puerto Rican heritage was constantly questioned:
How can puertorriqueños who have never left the Island accuse us when they allow the American contamination I was seeing all around? There were McDonald's, Pizza Huts, and so on. I used to think that this was not our culture (Puerto Rican Voices in English, p.163).

Questions about Santiago's identity came back to haunt her again after she titled her best-selling 1993 memoir When I Was Puerto Rican. Academics and Islanders alike were disturbed by the past tense of the verb to be in the title.

In 1974, my parents decided to move back to their homeland. As a young boy, I had been to Puerto Rico several times on vacation, but this time it was to stay. My first day in the sixth grade, and kids called me a Gringo and a Nuyorican. "Oye Gringo ven aca", they constantly yelled. My parents had spoken to my sisters and I about going back to our homeland, but I felt like a stranger in a foreign land. After more than twenty-five years on the Island, I am still asked constantly if I am a Puerto Rican or an American. In 1996, a colleague at an English Department in one of our higher institutions once reminded me that I was the only Nuyorican in the English department.

In Francois Grosjean's Life with Two Languages, he defines code-switching as "the alternate use of two or more languages in the same utterance or conversation"(145). If the use of two languages has been recognized by linguists and academics as a practice with a high degree of competence, how about dual identities? For once and for all, Island Puerto Ricans should understand that it is possible to be born elsewhere and still be a Puerto Rican. An American born on the Island or in any other parts of the world would definitely consider him/herself an American. Jews will always be Jews no matter where they were born, raised or presently reside. Mariposa, a young New York-Puerto Rican poet sums it up in "Ode to the DiaspoRican":
What does it mean to live in between
What does it take to realize
That being Boricua
Is a state of mind
A state of heart
A state of soul

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