As I stepped off the plane, the warm tropical hues encased my body and sent a jolt of energy through my heart like I had just taken over 20 espresso shots. The first feeling I remember as I took my first steps onto the ground was comfort. I was home, the motherland, Puerto Rico. Excitement stirred in my mind and a feeling of peculiar longing for a place I did not grow up in and did not remember was oddly satisfied. My parents smiled like they were seeing a lover coming back from war, and that feeling was as contagious as the black plague. The island fever had entered my system and I was infected, the treatment was simply to take everything in and don’t hold back.
I remember being nervous, waiting to meet these strange people who were
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apparently related to me somehow. The first time I saw them, they screeched and screamed for joy. They shot out of their front door like cannonballs and wrapped my whole family in warm embrace. It was alien to me. This jolt of energy, these actions of pure happiness and love, was strange to me. I did not know these people, I only got this kind of attention from my mother, not from people I have never met before. As I spent more time on the island, I came to be more and more familiar with this kind of treatment. Wherever we went, a wide ear to ear smile was waiting in front of our faces. It was the spirit of the island. An unwritten code to be happy and hospitable to those whom you meet. The energy that flowed from the palm trees, to the soft delicate sand to the clear blue water was invigorating. It ignited emotions I had never experienced before. I had never been so happy in my entire life. I was addicted to this place, like a drug, like love, like I never wanted to let go. The beach was heaven. The waves crashed to the shore line like a bundle of bricks falling to the ground. My brothers and I would sprint towards them as if they were our enemy across the battlefield. We would be met by force, a powerful wall of water smacking against our ruby red, burnt skin. We were at war with nature, the waves whirled us around under the surface and sloshed around in our heads. Each battle with the environment was another obstacle to overcome. We waged war for hours and then we ran back in to find ice cold water to revamp our energy. I still remember the sweet bells of the piragua trolley. The man singing his harmony. He had so little yet he was full of life. The children ran after him as the piping hot sand stabbing the bottom of their feet. The beach in Puerto Rico was heaven. No real description satisfies the scene during the day. The sky so clear and blue it was almost impossible to tell where the ocean ended and where the sky began. Being in the water was the only thing that mattered to me. Granted at the time, a ten year old boy was not flooded with stress and worries. But as I floated on the surface of the water with my ears submerged under, nothing could bother me. I could not hear anything but the serene oscillation of the ocean current. I was placed in a surreal world that belonged only to me. Those lazy beach days taught me one thing, which was how to relax. Relaxation was life on the island. Coming from the tristate area, relaxation was a myth. The cars sped, the horns hollered, the people yelled, the world turned over on itself. It was almost like a controlled chaos, just barely under the line of explosion. The life of the islanders was harmonious and rhythmic. The people strutted down the street swiftly ad gracefully. They took their time in every aspect of the world. Being late did not exist and their society. They just simply got there when they got there. I remember my cousin telling me, “Living here is amazing, especially in the summer, we get up whenever and make our way to the beach where we lay under the sun and take naps all day while we have vendors bring food to us. Then we come home and my mom cooks us a big dinner and we sit around the table listening to music and eating delicious food. Then we go to bed and wake up the next day to repeat the steps.” I fought the thought of it, I couldn’t believe life could be that simple and easy. I became accustomed to island life and it grew on me. It was not just a way of life, it was a culture. The whole island followed each other in a uniform fashion.
They acted like lazy soldiers who followed their leader into battle against a beer on the beach or a nap on the couch. I knew this lazy look at life could not be a constant repetition day after I day. I was right. Life was being lived to the fullest all around me. People were biking and surfing and running and dancing and being active. The same cousins who were taking naps on the beach were riding horses and playing basketball and driving ATV’s and jumping off waterfalls. They did not back down from anything. They had no fear. When I was around them I felt the same way. When I was back home, the rules my parents place were cemented in my mind but when I was in my island mode, those rules quickly faded into the sky like thin dainty cirrus clouds. I felt free. The aura of the land hypnotized me and changed my …show more content…
persona. The rainforest. A majestic salvation of the beauty this world has to offer. The saccharine symphony of sounds echoed through the leaves. The cool drops of water dove onto my head as I tried to scale walls of aged ancient rocks in some old navy sandals. I thought I was taking a risk and then I saw others running barefoot through the branches and bushes and paying no mind to the jagged rocks below their feet. Where were they running to? What were the faint splash sounds I heard in the distance? Then, finally I saw a break in the canopy draped over the forest floor, the sun shone from the heavens onto an area filled with laughter and life. Families gathered around eating home cooked food brought in portable kitchens on their backs. They sat down on the cliffs to watch as brave men and women flew through the air and fell into the cold, crisp water underneath the waterfall. Tumbling, diving, flipping, every challenger attempted to one up their predecessor. The sun glistened off the water like flashlights in the dark of night. The jumpers would disappear into the deep dark blue lagoon and would emerge with smiles on their faces. People were slipping and sliding on natural slides made by years of erosion on the Cliffside. They would not be stopped from living even if God ordered them to die. They had no plans of slowing down. If it was one thing I learned from the rainforest, it was to take risks if you want to live. The island was full of surprises, the night life was one of them.
An average night in New Jersey was most likely spent vegging out on the couch watching a movie or show on the television. An average night in Puerto Rico was filled with wonder and excitement. Couples shuffled across the dance floor brushing shoulders but not colliding with perfect grace. Their hips swayed back and forth like a rocking chair and their feet moved quicker than the speed of light. The music never stopped, the recurrent salsa or merengue rhythm flowed through every house and was heard all over the island. For the quieter moments, bachata eased the tension and cooled the fire for a short time. The air was salty and humid from all the sweat and passion, but what better to fill the air with than the smell of an authentic Puerto Rican dinner. The smoky, rich smell of pernil in the smoker or the delectable honeyed aroma of maduros frying in the pan. The food was so good it almost consumed your very soul and controlled you every time you ate it. The food spoke to you, it persuaded you to keep eating. To keep enjoying. To keep indulging. The food can not be simply, described, it must be experienced, it must be appreciated. The food must be loved. Every night was a feast, the joyous cackles of drunk men and flirtatious laughs of tipsy women filled the night air with life. The spirit of the island never slept. The coals of the passionate fire of Puerto Rico never died down completely and
were always ready to ignite once again. The night life of the island taught me one thing, to live life with passion and love every spoonful of life that you shove in your mouth. Days and nights spent with family was most common on the island. Everyone stayed together. Cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and even family friends spent time with one another on a regular basis. The feeling of belonging to a family was amplified by the land. The men would head off to play dominos and tell tales of the golden years as they slapped the table with the ivory rectangles that felt so smooth to the touch. The women would sit and gossip about God knows what, having the time of their lives with the ones they love. But of course, the best moments were the ones when the whole party was in sync with each other, all focused on one thing. Whether it be singing, or dancing or a game of dominos that captured the interest of even the babies who had no care in the world besides their diaper that was a little too full at the time. Those were the times when the love was spread through the crowd and wrapped everyone into one huge ball of tender care.
#1.The thesis in “A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood” by Judith Ortiz Cofer is that because of the stories her grandmother told every afternoon when she was a child, her writing was heavily influenced and she learned what it was like to be a ‘Puerto Rican woman’. The thesis of the selection is stated in the first and last sentence of the second paragraph: “It was on these rockers that my mother, her sisters, and my grandmother sat on these afternoons of my childhood to tell their stories, teaching each other, and my cousin and me, what it was like to be a woman, more specifically, a Puerto Rican woman . . . And they told cuentos, the morality and cautionary tales told by the women in our family for generations: stories that became
Imagine a teenage boy who is isolated on a faraway island, without food or water. The hot and sticky weather is intolerable, but the rampaging storms are worse. He quickly develops malaria and diarrhea, and on top of that, blood-sucking insects and menacing reptiles lurch beneath his feet. He has no idea what is coming, but he needs to survive. This is the story of a young boy who has to travel to the other side of the world to realize that everything can’t go his way.
The second idea of the island archetype is that isolation reduces humans to their most basic tendencies. The absence of law, structure, and order either leads to complete serenity, insight, and innocence, or the opposite: destruction, chaos, and confusion. In both of the stories, the latter is what occurred. One example of this from Lord of the Flies is shown in the quote “The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist” (181). One way this shows complete chaos is how they kil...
In order to understand the current situation of Puerto Ricans one must look at their history and retrace the sequence of events that led to the current formation of the Puerto Rican people. An important component of this history is the time Puerto Rico spent under Spanish rule. Studying this portion of Puerto Rican history forces us to acknowledge the contribution the Spaniards, European immigrants, and African slaves had on Puerto Rican identity as we consider it today. This also addresses contemporary debates on Puerto Rican identity. An example of this is evident in an essay written by Jose Luis Gonzales entitled "Puerto Rico : Th Four Storied Country". In the article Gonzales points out what he feels is a disregard toward the African contribution to the Puerto Rican identity. He argues that the first Puerto Ricans were black , based on his interpretation that Africans were the first group to come to Puerto Rico and reproduce who did not have ties to a "motherland" because they were slaves. This is unlike the Spaniard elites and Criolles that demonstrated their commitment and loyalty to Spain. Since they had no other place to go, Puerto Rico was their motherland. Gonzalez also points out that the culture of a region is always the culture of the elite, not the popular culture.
The debate on Puerto Rican Identity is a hot bed of controversy, especially in today’s society where American colonialism dominates most of the island’s governmental and economic policies. The country wrestles with the strong influence of its present day colonizers, while it adamantly tries to retain aspects of the legacy of Spanish colonialism. Despite America’s presence, Puerto Ricans maintain what is arguably their own cultural identity which seems largely based on the influence of Spain mixed with customs that might have developed locally.
In the histories of Colonial Latin America there is one common aspect and that is the importation of slaves as a labor force. The resulting consequences for the territory are vital if we are to understand the development of the society. In Puerto Rico these consequences deal mainly with African influence on the peasantry, the corrective measures taken thereafter to negate the African influence, and the results of these corrective measures.
Do you think Puerto Rico should become the 51st state? 61% of Puerto Ricans say yes. Puerto Rico as a state of the United States could benefits both the US and PR. Through fixing both crime rate, to bringing more economic success. Although both the US and PR had their own pros and cons on whether Puerto Rico become the 51st state or not. Puerto Rico has been a commonwealth of the United States for over many years. Many Americans and Puerto Ricans think that Puerto Rico should not be the 51st state because it has their advantages and disadvantage. So, Should Puerto Rico become the 51 state of the US or stay as they are, as a commonwealth.
When Puerto Ricans migrated to the United States they did it in two major waves. The first wave of emigration occurred in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The second wave occurred from the 1940s to the present. The workings of Bernando Vega and Jose Cruz deal with the different generations of Puerto Ricans that these two waves brought to the United States. While Vega discusses the early emigration of Puerto Ricans to New York City, Cruz discusses the later emigration of Puerto Ricans to Connecticut. Each author describes a different Puerto Rican experience in the United States. The experiences differed in most aspects; from the context in which each wave of emigration occurred to the type of politics that was practiced.
In this story, the reader can see exactly how, many Puerto Ricans feel when living on other grounds. Throughout this time, the boy that Rodriguez presents us realizes he has his culture and that he wants to preserve it as much as he can. “Because I’m Puerto Rican”. I ain’t no American. And I’m not a Yankee flag-waver”
The Dominican Republic is a nation located in the Caribbean Sea and shares the land with Haiti, and the whole island is called Hispaniola as it was named when Christopher Columbus discovered it during his first voyage in the year 1492. The country has proved to be one of the leading Caribbean countries with accessible healthcare to its citizens and even expats. However, the country has a multinational population with low-to-medium incomes and multi-level access to healthcare based on income. Despite this, improvements to healthcare system can lead to better medical outcomes to all the citizens and even to the suffering citizens of the Haiti. Because the Dominican Republic is an immediate neighbor to struggling Haiti, it is the moral obligation of the Dominican to provide Haitians with access to healthcare.
Puerto Rico is a small island in the Caribbean that holds a vast, and rich culture. Due to its accessible geographical location, it is often called the key to the Caribbean. Puerto Rico enriched its people with one of the most innate and unique culture different from the rest of the world. The colonization of Spaniards left us not only with myriad architectural heritage, but also with language and cultural traditions that beholds Hispanic imagery and representations. Our music, our love of dancing and festivities, as well as our practice of Catholic beliefs represents
When I stepped out of the hot, airless plane into the bright, dazzling sunlight beaming down across the burning concreate, I felt excited and nervous. Holding my beach bag in my hand and slipping my Ray Ban sunglasses on with my other, I flip-flopped down the airspace. Overhead I heard the screams of gulls and the chatter of the small fluffy birds. I suddenly realized I had arrived to Hawaii. This trip was such an unforgettable vacation for me because I got to witness the beauty of nature that Hawaii has to offer.
which is a predominantly Hispanic area of the city. I myself am also a Roman
Every day , Puerto Rico is slowly adapting into the American way of life and is gradually losing what is left of their culture. Perhaps this is because Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States. The poem “ Coca Cola and Coco Frio” by Martin Espada is a great example of someone who encounters the Americanized culture of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is struggling to preserve their own identity.
Music, in the history of Puerto Rico, has played a role of great significance as a means of cultural expression. The five centuries of musical activity shows that Puerto Ricans have created, developed and promoted a variety of genres ranging from folk music, concert music and new genres. The Puerto Rican music and native musicians have shaped and enriched the identity of the Puerto Rican people and their roots.