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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