“No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive.” ~Mahatma Gandhi
When I lived in New York City I was an extra for several television shows. Extras are the people you see in the shows that are in the background walking down the street or standing in a crowd while the actors perform a scene. One time I was an extra for a popular crime drama show that shall remain nameless. The shoot was taking place in a hospital, and all the extras were “holding” in an empty operating room. The male lead actor of the show, who happens to be a pretty big movie star, and who shall also remain nameless, came into the room to meet the extras and hang out with us while the crew was setting up the next scene. He told us he wanted to play a game. He wanted to guess our heritage, or what part of the world each of us originated from.
He went one by one: “You’re Eastern European,” he told a girl with a strong jaw, blondish hair and blue eyes. She told him: “That’s right, you’re good!” “You’re Middle Eastern,” he told a man with a thick uni-brow and olive skin. Right again. He continued down the line, and when he got to me he stared and examined my face. I smiled and thought to myself, “He’s never going to guess my heritage.” I got a little cocky and told him that he wasn’t going to guess correctly. He looked at me a while longer and then smirked: “Okay, so what are you?” Proudly, I said “Puerto Rican.” He looked at me with a bemused look on his face and rhetorically asked: “You’re Puerto Rican?” I nodded. He paused and then belligerently responded: “No you’re not!” “No one from Puerto Rico is really Puerto Rican!” “You better call your mommy and daddy and ask them where you’re really from ‘cuz you’re not Puerto Rican.” He chuckled and left the room. I didn’t look at anyone; my face must’ve turned every shade of red. I was livid; but I knew down deep inside that he was, for the most part, correct. I really am not Puerto Rican. I’m a lot more than Puerto Rican because heritage and culture go deeper than that.
The next day I sat in front of a computer and started googling. I entered in the search engine: “Bermudez family history genealogy” and a gaggle of websites popped up with information on how to search for your cultural roots. Three days later I found myself at the U.S. National Archives sitting in front of a microfiche reader analyzing the 1930 Census of Puerto Rico. I found my paternal grandparents listed as the first family registered in the village or “barrio” of Santa Rosa in Utuado. My dad was 2 years old. Thus began the quest to find my roots through genealogy and family history research, and the journey I’ve embarked on has been an enriching and rewarding experience because it has allowed me to know, through interviews and the documents I’ve uncovered, the way my parents, grandparents and ancestors lived their lives, and that has allowed me to understand and view my life from a more positive perspective. I know the obstacles, the accomplishments and the poverty my family lived through, and now can better appreciate my own life experiences, and as a result, feel more complete as a person.
I recently read an essay by Tom Rosenberg, a writer and immigrant from Germany whose family fled Nazi persecution in 1938, settled in New York City, and changed their surname to Ross when he was only six years old. Rosenberg’s essay: Changing My Name after Sixty Years, which appeared in Newsweek on July 17, 2000, movingly shows what motivated him to change his name at age sixty. His story is inspirational because it is more than just about changing his name. It’s a story about a man who came to grips with years of denying his heritage, and changed his surname back to Rosenberg to show his children just how important it was for him to be in touch with his family’s cultural roots. While he was embracing his Jewish heritage he was also embracing completeness as a person.
Reading his essay reminded me of a quote by Alex Haley, who wrote the epic novel Roots: “In all of us there is a hunger, marrow deep to know our heritage… without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning no matter what our attainments in life.” Rosenberg describes how in a restaurant with his family, toasting to the publication of his first novel, and to the “tenacity for staying with fiction for some thirty years,” he decided to make the announcement that he wanted to be remembered by the name he was born with. He told his children: “My parents, your grandparents, changed their name out of fear. I’m changing it back out of pride.” Tom Rosenberg felt so liberated that at one point he wanted to shout, “I’m an immigrant!” I too sometimes want to shout “I’m Puerto Rican!”
Through my research I have come to the realization that a person’s sense of cultural identity is subjective and may depend on how he/she individually feels about it. I wasn’t born in Puerto Rico, but I identify myself as Puerto Rican because both my parents are island born and taught me to love and cherish the Puerto Rican culture. It really doesn’t matter that I was born in New Jersey. New Jersey, for me, is a place my parents chose to start and raise a family. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love New Jersey and have a deep connection with the place I grew up in, but it doesn’t define who I am ethnically or culturally. What culturally defines me is the blood that runs through my veins, which is very Puerto Rican, Hispanic, Spanish, Latino, Taino, African, European or whatever you want to call it.
Yet, to a lot of Island born Puerto Ricans I’m not Puerto Rican because I was not born in Puerto Rico. They also believe that to be Puerto Rican my first language must be Spanish (it isn’t), and that I must speak Spanish like it is spoken on the Island (I don’t). They tell me that I should act more like a Puerto Rican (I like mofongo and Reggaeton, does that qualify?). The Puerto Rican “elite” argues that I’ve been “contaminated” by the American culture and therefore cannot be Puerto Rican. I want to tell them what the Hollywood star on the set of the television crime drama show told me: “No one from Puerto Rico is really Puerto Rican,” anyway.
During the early 1800’s, through the “Cédula de Gracias,” Spain, for the first time, allowed thousands of European citizens to migrate to Puerto Rico. People from all over Europe and America settled in Puerto Rico. According to Puerto Rican historian Estela Cifre de Loubriel by the mid 1800’s over 450,000 Europeans from France, Italy, Germany and America had settled in Puerto Rico. It is that eclectic contribution, together with what was already on the island (Taino, African and Spanish), and the subsequent U.S.A. influence, that really defines Puerto Ricanness. Puerto Ricans are a wonderful mixture of different cultures and heritages that are all important and should be appreciated and respected equally. All of these different heritages are mashed together just like fried plátanos, garlic and olive oil are all mashed together in a big pilón to become a delicious mofongo.
The other day I was filling out the 2010 Census and got stuck on a question; the one about my Hispanic origin. The list of options included: Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin; Mexican, Mexican American, Chicano; Puerto Rican; Cuban; and, other. So, I called the census office to get some clarification. The lady on the other side of the telephone read from a script: “Origin can be determined by the place you were born, or the place your parents were born, or the place your grandparents were born; it can also be what you most identify yourself with.” It was still a little unclear, but I just checked off “Puerto Rican” and called it a day.
* The title is a reference to the memoir When I Was Puerto Rican by award winning Puerto Rican writer Esmeralda Santiago.
