Palm trees. Expensive cars. Slick new highways that cruise along the water. Tall, commercial hotel buildings looming over boardwalks and beaches.
No, this isn't South Florida. This is Puerto Rico.
Though the resemblance is uncanny, this is not Miami Beach, but perhaps a distant relative of the South Florida city. This is the island of my ancestry, the island where my mother's family comes from. This is "la isla del encanto," or "the island of enchantment." This is the island of the oxymoron; of rainforests, Spanish language, homemade foods and a deep love for culture juxtaposed with commercialized roadways, non-Spanish speaking citizens, cruise ship shoppers, Burger Kings and a deep desire to be a part of the country that rules it.
This is Puerto Rico, the U.S.'s exotic stepdaughter.
During the week I was in Puerto Rico as part of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists conference, apart from the work I did as a part of the Student Projects there, I got to observe the island. I was truly looking forward to exploring the island and its culture, seeing as it is a part of my heritage and a place I haven't visited since I was younger.
Just as I had remembered and imagined, the isla is vibrant, full of culture, bright colors and some of my favorite dishes like tostones, bistec encebollado and mafongo. Outside of San Juan, towns like Piñones and Bayamón still hold on to their own Puerto Rican charm. Merengue, salsa and reggaeton can be heard blasting out of windows and cars all over the island.
But in San Juan and Viejo San Juan, the city's capital and the old downtown district, the charm is mixed with that same South Florida commercialism, a mix that mirrors the citizens of the island's mixed feelings about the territorial status of their island.
Puerto Rican natives fight the U.S.'s wars. They pay Social Security and welfare and abide by the U.S.'s rules. Yet they don't vote in the U.S.'s elections and are often viewed by U.S. residents as foreigners, although they are citizens. And this hypocrisy is apparent in many of the people.
While doing an interview for a story I was working on about the genre of reggaeton music, a source interrupted me mid sentence and completely changed the subject.
"Is Obama going to make us a state like he promised?" the source asked in English, although the conversation had previously been in Spanish. A grown man, his eyes twinkled with the hopefulness of a child asking their mother to go to the toy store.
His girlfriend shook her head before I could respond, switching the conversation back to Spanish.
"No necesitamos los Estados Unidos" -- "We don't need the United States," she said bitterly, spitting the words "Estados Unidos". She continued on in Spanish. "If we become a state, we will lose everything that's important to us, and we'll become like like all those other states with no idea of what culture really means."
This brief conversation represents the split feelings of the island, which come to a head in its capital city filled with both pride and doubt. The same confusion and painful divide undoubtedly shared by many of the U.S.'s territories stuck in the limbo between Independence and statehood.
