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BoricuaFirst !To be or not to be Puerto Rican: That is the Boricua question By Manuel Hernández To be or not to be, that is the Boricua question. The past "estreno" of the movie, El Cantante refueled the issue of who is and who is not "puertorriqueño" in Puerto Rico and the United States. Jennifer López and Marc Anthony captivated the media's attention when they visited Puerto Rico for the premiere, but the media categorized them as "artistas de origen puertorriqueño". With recent US Census reports revealing parallel numbers between Puerto Ricans born on the Island and Boricuas born, raised or living on the Mainland, the debate will find new life as we continue to visit and revisit the Shakespearean-Puerto Rican question. Even with demonstrations of brotherhood and camaraderie in public demonstrations by Marc Anthony and Chayanne, the issue takes center-stage in daily discussions on the Island. In his record-breaking concert in Madison Square Garden, Marc Anthony stated that he was a Puerto Rican and an American at the same time. One of the founders of the Nuyorican poetry movement, Sandra Maria Estevez, states in her poem “Here” that she is “two parts a person, boricua/spic, past and present, alive and oppressed”. United States Ricans have a way of intertwining their dual identities and are not apprehensive about being bilingual and bicultural, but on the Island academics and scholars alike have perpetuated the discussions on who and who is not and have made it part of their every day rice and beans. With tens of thousands of United States Ricans coming back to their homeland to retire and settle down and thousands of others migrating to the US as I write, the situation will only develop into heights yet unknown to Boricuas-kind. The best-selling Puerto Rican author, Esmeralda Santiago, came back to Puerto Rico after thirteen years and was disappointed when her Puerto Rican heritage was constantly questioned:” How can puertorriqueños who have never left the Island accuse us when they allow the American contamination I was seeing all around? There were McDonald’s, Pizza Huts, and so on. I used to think that this was not our culture (Puerto Rican Voices in English, p.163).” Questions about Santiago’s identity came back to haunt her again after she titled her best-selling 1993 memoir When I Was Puerto Rican. Literary discourse specialists in colleges on the Island were disturbed by the past tense of the verb to be in the title. Years later and with widespread international acclaim, her local critics have eased the critical tone and now proudly invite her to speak at conferences today in the same academic arenas where her identity was questioned in the past. In Francois Grosjean’s Life with Two Languages, he defines code switching as “the alternate use of two or more languages in the same utterance or conversation” (145). If the use of two languages has been recognized by linguists and academics as a practice with a high degree of competence, how about dual identities? For once and for all, Island based Puerto Ricans and US Ricans should understand that it is possible to be born elsewhere and still be a Puerto Rican. An American born on the Island or in any other parts of the world would definitely consider him/herself an American. Jews will always be Jews no matter where they were born, raised or presently reside. “Ode to the DiaspoRican” Some people say that I’m not the real thing
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