Bringing Puerto Rico Home

My sisters and I visited Puerto Rico in February.

Revisiting the island with my sisters was a sweet experience. We found healing in the waters from our homeland and discovered pieces of our identities that we didn’t know were missing. I reconnected with my sweet cousin Lourdes. We fell into lots of silly moments with each other. Dancing in the streets in San Juan, practicing our synchronized swimming in the ocean and just general quirkiness. We spent our entire childhood apart so it seemed we were making up for it in a way. It’s absolutely wild to me that this part of me was here on this Earth, miles away, our relationship dormant until I reached for it. It’s never too late.

I met family members who hadn’t seen me since I was a toddler. I wiped tears away standing in the kitchen of a family member after receiving a plate of food from her. It was everyone around me laughing and reminiscing in Spanish. It was the soul food, the love poured into it, the unconditional nature of it all, it just hit me very hard all in a moment. I gave her a hug, wiped my tears and devoured the meal. We fully enjoyed all the sunshine, food and kindness that Puerto Ricans always seem to exemplify. Our aunt and uncle spoiled us while we were there. We could never express how much their involvement in our lives means to us.

I hate to say that it was easier to leave this time because it was still hard but it was different this time. My sister asked me how I thought my re-entry would be this go around since I fell into such a depression coming home from our last trip. After our last trip I was deeply saddened to leave my family behind. I missed the food and the culture, the sun, the Spanish, the people, and beauty of the island itself. Since then I’ve made an effort to keep communication open with my family and our bond continues to grow.

When my sisters and I drove out to Walmart late one night to grab some extra luggage we stopped in the aisle of notebooks to gush over all the notebooks that were in Spanish. My cousin laughed, that is until I asked her if she’d write to me in this too cute to pass up notebook so we could be pen pals.

I incorporate small amounts of Spanish with Felicity, listen to more Spanish music unashamedly and I also signed up to lead the multicultural committee at Felicity’s school this year. This volunteer position has nurtured my love for culture and travel. We had a successful Trip Around the World event in the lower grades earlier this school year where we had volunteers share a short presentation about the countries students were learning about in their curriculum.

A few weeks ago Felicity’s school hosted it’s first Culture Fair. I was honored to be a part of this massively successful event. Twenty countries were represented by parent or family volunteers. Each table represented their country with artifacts, info and food samples! I loved seeing people share about their culture. The diversity at Felicity’s school is one of the major reasons we chose her school. I’m so happy to have helped give the students an enriching experience and be a part of widening their worldview.

I of course hosted a Puerto Rico table and was able to share authentic info about one of my favorite places on earth, I brought a Coqui and guiro which the kiddos loved, and shared the best foods to try when visiting the island. I also brought Rositas cookies to sample which were a smash hit.

Incorporating Puerto Rico and my family more into my life and sharing that with others has helped me to feel connected to a place I feel is home.

We had some amazing parents volunteers take photos at the event. Here’s a few more snippets from the fair.

On a recent errand I run I was outside of our area when I spotted a coffee shop at a red light. It was around the time that’d I’d normally have an afternoon cup of coffee and I had another place to go to. I figured, why not take myself on a little coffee date and stop by, it seemed nice. I stepped in where I was greeted by a man covered in tattoos. I thought to myself that he sounded Puerto Rican but too nervous to ask I went ahead and ordered my iced latte. Then he went ahead and asked me. “You Spanish?”

“Yes!” I stated.

“Where from?” he asked.

That’s when I excitedly shared, “Puerto Rico! I was born in Virginia but my parents are Puerto Rican.”

He smiled and said, “Oh Boricua, I’m Puerto Rican too, grew up in New York.”

We proceeded to have a conversation about how much the island felt like home to us. How it was like no other place on earth. How the people are so hospitable. About what it’s like to grow up and live here but still long for the connection to our island. It was such a sweet little God wink moment and I’m so glad I stopped in that day.