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Why I Abandoned the American Dream and Followed My Puerto Rican Dream Instead
I came back home to show my native homeland the love it deserves
When I told people I was returning home to Puerto Rico, some thought I was making a big mistake. From friends to family, they had a hard time understanding why I would reject a life of apparent opportunity in the U.S. for life on a struggling, albeit paradisiacal, island.
And that was back in 2010, before the crisis deepened and before a hurricane destroyed the country.
But I sold most of the things I owned in California, packed the rest tightly in a suitcase, and got on a plane, reasoning that if I was going to live just once, it had to be where I could be the happiest.
At the Oakland airport, I pushed my oversized suitcase, crammed with books, vintage clothes, my entire life. I checked the suitcase and took a carry-on through security. When they asked for my identification, I showed my California license. The TSA employee looked at the license, then at the ticket that said San Juan, and he said, “You gonna love Puerto Rico. Have fun on your vacation.” A tourist I was not, but I surely felt like an impostor.
I had ditched the Puerto Rico license when I moved to California in 2006. I had started to call myself a Californian. Officially an American. I had arrived looking for the collective dream, and my new identity dwelled within a couple inches of plastic.
I flipped my identification card, and it revealed an “I voted” sticker I had placed there back in 2008. I’d voted for Obama and had enjoyed his victory. It was one day when I felt American.
But that right to vote would disappear the moment I landed in San Juan. On the island, this U.S. citizen could not participate in U.S. politics. I would not be an American in Puerto Rico. Then again, I never really was an American in the United States, either. In the U.S., my labels were minority, person of color, immigrant, migrant… never truly American. Rarely Puerto Rican. People in the U.S. like generic labels.
I looked for gate C7 to San Juan. As I got close, I could hear voices in Spanish. Other Puerto Ricans who lived in the Bay Area, too. They were instantly…
