Latina Pride

Here I am listening to Olga Meredith’s “Paciencia y Fe” song on the In the Heights soundtrack. This is probably the most important song in the musical, for it sets the tone for the entire show. It’s a song about the Latino experience, whether in our native countries or in America. If you’ve never heard it, I strongly advise you to do so. I’m sure it’s on YouTube or maybe on the show’s actual site.

In the song Olga talks about life “back home”, in Cuba: the sky full of stars, the birds, the heat, the poorness, the hunger, the anger, but also, she talks about life in America: the discrimination, the lack of good jobs, the language barrier issue, the ambition, the bravery, the faith, the dreams. I mean, really, the song is incredibly passionate, heartfelt, and above all, real. It’s definitely one of my favorite songs on the soundtrack and one of my favorite songs period.

Listening to “Paciencia y Fe” brought back memories of a conversation I had once and it completely changed my perspective. Listen up:

One night I was hanging out with some friends when two of the guys there asked me a question that they had already asked me before, but the first time it was brushed off with no further discussion. The guys were African-American and their question was: “what influential individuals do Puerto Rican people have to be proud of?” I answered with what I knew off the top of my head and I said Tito Puente, one of the greatest artists in Latin Jazz, Rita Moreno, the first female entertainer to win all four major awards (Grammy, Emmy, Tony, Oscar), and Antonia Novello, a brilliant doctor who served as the surgeon general of the United States between the years of 1990-1993. In my eyes, these people were, indeed, influential individuals, people of substance, and is that not what was in question? The original question was: whom do Puerto Ricans have to be proud of? An accomplishment is an accomplishment, at any level, and it’s something to be proud of. However, the people I mentioned were not good enough for them. They wanted individuals that can be compared to the likings of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, or Nelson Mandela: people who changed the world in some way.

I respected their objections, but my first thought was that these people are so famously known, and they did what they did because they had no other option; they had no other route to take. They were under an immense amount of pressure that could’ve only been tackled by the extreme. Therefore, they took actions that reflected their troubles. I believed Puerto Ricans were never under such severe circumstances to bring about such reactions. Yes, we were discriminated against, but it cannot be compared to the discrimination African Americans experienced. These were my initial thoughts. The fact that Puerto Ricans were also enslaved in their own country, that we were colonized and used and abused (think: Vieques), and that many people on the island fought hard to make a difference didn’t come to mind. My brain wasn’t prepared for such a question and I felt upset that I didn’t have the knowledge to tackle this situation. However, these men managed to challenge me. After speaking to them, I wanted to learn everything concerning Puerto Rican people; the time before the United States took control, the time after, life on the island, and migration to the states. I was hoping to find prominent Puerto Rican people that I could be proud of under anyone’s standards, and, indeed, I did.

I learned of many prominent, successful, intelligent individuals. People like Luis Munoz Marin, Pedro Albizu Campos, Ricardo E. Alegria, Victor A. Carreno, and many others. But still, I constantly thought about my initial motivation while I advanced in my research. The truth is I am not sure why these men questioned me the way they did about people of the same ethnicity as mine; I don’t know if they were doing it out of genuine interest, to challenge me, or to demean me. I must admit I did find their question a bit offensive at the time, but it is because of their question that I embarked on this wonderful journey to discovering my roots, my heritage, and my culture, which has given me a reason to be proud of where I come from.

But now as I listened to Meredith’s voice I realized that I didn’t have to do all that research to name Puerto Rican individuals worthy of praise. I only had to look within myself and think of my mother, my grandmother, my father. These are people who took a risk, left everything they knew about, to embark on a journey in search for a better life for their family. My race is full of women and men who took the poor jobs with horrible wages that no one else would take, and made a living off it; It’s full of men and women who are driven, brave, hopeful, and who were able to continue to dream through all of the chaos. The simple stories in our own family’s history are stories full of pride. Stories like the one Esmeralda Santiago tells us in When I was Puerto Rican, or like Christina Garcia’s Dreaming in Cuban, or Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, or in Miguel Pinero’s poetry. These are the stories and the people that I’m most proud of.

Thank you, Meredith. If only I had listened to you that night.