I didn't know anything about my Puerto Rican or Dominican culture until I was in my late twenties. This information was not taught or available in the schools. And it's still pretty much the case. I go into the schools today, and one of the first lessons I do with the children is to talk about the Taino Indians. You would think with all the information available today, that students would know something. But the kids are amazed when they hear me talk about this. I ask them if they know the meaning of Borinqueña or Quisqueyana. Even in Washington Heights, in a school that is predominantly Dominican, they don't know where Quisqueya comes from, even though they've heard it a thousand times. They don't know that it's a Taino word. They don't know that it was the Indian name of their island. So this information is still missing, yet still terribly important.

Soy boricua. In spite of my family and in spite of my country, I’m writing the process of the Puerto Rican mind— taking it out of context—as a native and a foreigner—expressing it through Spanish, Spanglish, and English—Independencia, Estado Libre Asociado, and Estadidad—from the position of a nation, a colony, and a state—Wishy, Wishy-Washy, and Washy.

¡Qué rico es ser boricua!

… I don't use "Hispanic" because it is Eurocentric and denies the fact that the people being labeled are not just of Spanish origin. Nor do they all speak Spanish. "Hispanic" denies our indigenous or Indian roots. It also denies our African roots, from the thousands of slaves that were brought to Latin America. "Hispanics" are a unique people made up of at least three different populations. For many of us the term "Latino/Latina" is better than "Hispanic." It has a connection with Latin America, not with Spain. But "Latino" is by no means ideal because it has a European connotation, also. The term comes from "Latin," which was, of course, a European language. Then comes the term we often use ourselves, "la Raza"..."La Raza" is a popular all-embracing term among many of us. But it's the one least used by the media and the dominant society.

Because of anti-blackness in the United States and Latin America, most of us are either hyper-visible or invisible, or both simultaneously. So many people I’ve had conversations with don’t even know that Latinxs are not a race or that black people exist in Puerto Rico (and throughout all of Latin America) and that we don’t all look exactly the same. As a light-skinned black Boricua, I’m often read as racially ambiguous, and because of colorism, I benefit from my proximity to whiteness. I think it’s our responsibility (those of us who benefit from light-skinned privilege or racial ambiguity or whiteness) to have a reckoning with race, to do the work to actively address institutional racism, as well as racism and colorism in our everyday lives, not just in the public eye. Otherwise, we are complicit.

Puerto Ricans don't like to talk about racism or admit that it exists among Puerto Ricans. Boricuas talk of an island free from racism, or they say that the amerikkkans brought it. Although the amerikkkans did make it worse, racism in Puerto Rico began with the Spanish. According to them, one drop of white blood meant you were white and better than your Black compatriot. Acceptance was given according to the "degree of whiteness."

Puerto Rico in particular intertwines Caribbean Black Spanish. We dare to claim it. It is a source of pride and we are not linguistically crippled. My claim to fame is I can experiment, and sound intelligent with my linguistic experiments.

being Puerto Rican is more than speaking and writing a language, and more than a language. It is a culture and a way of thinking; an environment; customs; food; a very complex context.

In the United States, I was considered a Puertorriqueña; on the island, I was considered a little gringita.

Afro-descendants in Puerto Rico fall between the gaps of two converging definitions of Blackness and Latinx-ness and therefore, remain invisible to both U.S. and colonial Puerto Rico's public policies. I have to say that Puerto Rican government administrations have used the U.S. current definition of "Latinx identity to further marginalize Afro-Puerto Ricans. For instance, administrations of all political denominations use the Latinx minority status to ask for aid for the whole Puerto Rican population, without precise statistical information that includes race. On the island, they use the overrated and old discourse of "mestizaje to further marginalize blackness. Most public departments refuse to use the category of "Afro-Latino or "Afro-Hispanic in their census. They do use the category "African American," which is not the identity with which many Afro-Latinxs, or Latin people of African descent identify themselves. Up to this point, we don't know, for instance, how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected people of African descent on the island. This racist policy does not provide us as Afro-Puerto Ricans with the necessary tools to demand government action nor changes in public policy to benefit our population.

The nationalistic sentiments underlying the messages displayed in the Puerto Rican flag, the pinned buttons, T-shirts, and berets of Puerto Rican youth validated the roots and identities of those who had left the island but carried the island in their hearts. The slogans "Tengo Puerto Rico en mi corazón, "I'm Proud to be Puerto Rican," "Puerto Rican Power," "Qué Viva Puerto Rico Libre," "Free Puerto Rico Now," "Despierta Boricua, Defiende lo Tuyo" (Wake up, Boricua, and defend what is yours) and "¡Jíbaros Sí, Yanquis, No!" were proudly and defiantly flaunted throughout the Puerto Rican barrios of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and other cities where the Young Lords were making their presence felt.

How delicious is being boricua!

Being born on the banks of the Bosphorus, I'm Byzantine by nationality, but French by education, German by training, Spanish by choice, Catalan at heart, fron the Canary Isles sometimes, and now becoming someone from Barranquilla by adoption and affection.

This is another thing about being honest with one’s writing. You know that the big umbrella term is Latino/Latina. Twenty years ago, we defined ourselves categorically with the word Chicana. This has been amplified and that’s okay as long as they’re talking about the same experiences, but that is not the case. We are all migrants, there’s not one of us that did not come from an immigrant family. There are different stages; however, some are still coming in from El Salvador and Mexico, some like my family on both sides came in the early part of last century. Some come directly as rural people and others as city people, one is not better than the other…