Sometimes I wish I was from the island.
I think about this when I go to Puerto Rico and when I hear myself speak and behave in Spanish. But I never understood exactly why I felt this way until I went to Cuba. It wasn’t until I traveled three weeks throughout the island in April that I felt linguistically disabled and void of expression.
English is rarely, if at all, spoken among the locals in Cuba. This meant my mind and body had to communicate in Spanish. As I traveled away from Havana and deeper into the interior, I struggled with my diction, thought-processes, and body language. But what I more so grappled with was my existence. A country that is unwavering and uncompromising with their identity, Cuba made me doubt myself as a Latina.
What place did I have in my Puerto Rican lineage if I couldn’t express its culture through my ancestor’s Spanish in our sister nation. If the way I pronounced the words, how I interpreted the language, and my cultural nuances is in an American context, from an English language mindset. How was I preserving my ancestors’ cultural ties when I felt like I was infiltrating it with American thought?
Language is considered to be an oral expression of culture used to communicate and preserve cultural connections. Theories by noted American linguists such as Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, concluded that the way we think is tenaciously connected to the language we speak.
As a first generation child, born and raised in Brooklyn, New York of Puerto Rican parents, my Spanish is not associated with Caribbean beliefs, ideals or ethics. It is a Spanish of the Caribbean not from the Caribbean. Although I speak, read and write a Spanish taught by my parents, I understand it from a Nuyorican narrative. Rooted in cultural assumptions of Borinquen, mixed with deep American ideology.
My first language was Spanish per my parents dedication. Every year, since I could fly, they took me to Puerto Rico to get to know my other side of the family. Everything in my life was rooted in Spanish and Puerto Rico until I started pre-school at four years old.
Pre-school exposed me to new figures of authority, a new culture and a new language. Here, everyone spoke English. But it wasn’t until the first grade, at the age of six, where the start of a gradual change in the way I spoke but just as importantly, in the way I thought, began to develop. As I passed the grades in elementary school, English eventually took over my life. It became my central resource in how to communicate.
When I was first enrolled in school, my mom told administration to place me in a bilingual class. The school didn’t. This negligence played a role in how it would affect the development of my first language and disrupt the connection to my heritage.
Although I spoke Spanish at home and with my family, I was spending almost nine hours a day (school and after-school) in an all English-speaking environment. Not only did my Spanish wane significantly but so did my Puerto Rican pride.
By the time I got to junior high school, I was ripened to abandon my identity as a Latina. And I did. Throughout the three years, from ages 11 to 13, my peers made it clear that if you spoke Spanish or listened to Spanish music you were a hick — a country dweller. This was the catalyst to my disownment. The cultivation and preservation of cultures was discouraged. Even my contemporaries knew this.
I denied being Puerto Rican until the age of 15, when my parents and I went back to the island after a five-year furlough. It was on this trip, through the eyes, humility and actuality of my Puerto Rican people, I saw the grand validity in taking back my roots.
I returned home speaking Spanish again and obsessively listening to old school Salsa legends like Hector Lavoe. But this wasn’t enough. In the early years of my development, I was robbed of maintaining my Latina-ness. I wasn’t taught our history or placed in an environment where my Spanish could progress.
The struggle became clear in Cuba and the consciousness was overwhelming. Yes, my heart is Puerto Rican but my mind is American. My Latina side was encapsulated, unable to flourish because the American side was highly advanced. It was overpowering. My ancestors live inside of me but I couldn’t express it in its totality.
In between the conversations and interactions with Cubans, I felt I didn’t even have the infrastructure or credibility to be a Latina because of my Spanish-language corruption.
I felt colonized by America.
To get to the core of my displacement, I had to decolonize. It wasn’t only about speaking the language through a native perspective, it was believing that being of Latino descent was honorable.
I first understood I had a place in my heritage. I was a carrier of its culture to the next generation and that was valuable. I was worth something. In building my self-worth, I understood spaces like yoga studios and ivy league schools like Columbia University exist for everyone, not only for those who frequent it the most. I am worth taking up space and my Latina side had space as well. I understood my voice was worthy. That it was possible to write for publications like The Huffington Post. That I have a voice as a Latina.
When I learned all of this, I was able to embrace my ancestry and not be ashamed but dignified of where I am from. And I learned that although I might not have the native tongue, their blood is running through my veins.
Sometimes I still wish I was from the island but soon I remember the Ode to the Disaporican by Mariposa:
No nací en Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico nacío en mi.
――
Damaly Gonzalez is a Travel and Latino Culture Writer from Brooklyn, NY. She is the founder of Backpacking the Caribbean, an online cultural travel hub that connects the traveler to an authentic Caribbean experience.
Follow her on Instagram at www.instagram.com/damaly/