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PUERTO RICO  |
The Latino Explosion
is going off in my backyard
By RAPHAELLA CRUZ
of TheColumnists.com
When I moved into my apartment six years ago, the realtor painted a picture of a ‘multicultural’ neighborhood, and indeed she was correct. My neighbors were Russian, Mexican, African-American, Guatemalan, Greek, Jewish, Portuguese, and right next door, Puerto Rican.
As far as neighborhood dominance goes, though, the Puerto Rican contingent was the most formidable. There was only one Puerto Rican family on the street, but roughly 20 people lived in their modest apartment–and they made their presence known.
At the crack of dawn, children would spill from the front and back doors (and sometimes the windows), little ones, big ones, babies and teenagers. Mostly barefoot, they would scurry around to gather bikes, roller skates, skate boards, scooters, and thus awaken almost everyone in the neighborhood. Most of the time, one or more of the children wore the Puerto Rican flag on a t-shirt, shorts, dress or headband.
This was my first glimpse of Orgullo Boricua (Puerto Rican pride)--and it wasn’t only the children who sported it. The father–el baron–of this large family, “Pichy,” was an unemployed country man who would emerge from the house in the early to mid-afternoon each day to polish his SUV–obviously his most prized, if not only, possession. As a woman who is uninformed about cars and happy that way, I couldn’t tell you what kind it was, but it was green and always blindingly shiny. The tinted back window had a giant decal that said “Puerto Rico” over a graphic of a large sun superimposed on the flag of Puerto Rico.
If anyone in the neighborhood thought they might take an afternoon nap to make up for the early rising, it would not be easy. While Pichy waxed his SUV, he kept all four doors and the hatch open while Salsa, Merengue, and Batchata boomed from the oversized speakers inside. Accordingly, passing police cruisers would often pull into his driveway to ask him--for the last time!--to please turn it down. Pichy could not understand why.
Pichy was a friendly guy. He almost always had a Corona in his hand and always became even more friendly into the evening and night when the real partying began, almost every night. I am told there are around 48 official holidays in Puerto Rico, because any excuse to party is good enough. So Pichy lived this life in this little Boston suburb as if he were in his Puerto Rican mountain barrio.
Eventually Pichy and Co. moved out, and over the years, the Russians, Greeks, African-Americans and Portuguese–almost everyone else–has vacated the neighborhood as the Latin explosion arrived. One by one, each and every duplex on the street was rented to a Hispanic family (Puerto Rican, Mexican, Guatemalan).
Today almost all my neighbors have the same last name (Cruz, Torres, Lopez). The first names are harder to decipher, as they all go by nicknames or middle names. By coincidence, my husband is Puerto Rican, and my education in Puerto Rican naming conventions has expanded over time. In my husband’s family, for example (he has 16 brothers and sisters), William is Junior. Iada is Tata. Richardson is Noin. Ramon is Asin, and so on. Our own 9-month-old son, Michael, is now going by his middle name, Sebastian.
Our son’s Guatamalan daycare provider, Elvia, who lives across the street, has a live-in family that has grown exponentially in the one year that I have known her. I was pleasantly surprised the other day when Elvia and our children and I walked to the bus stop to wait for her nieces to get off the school bus. When it arrived, a multitude of Latinas ran from the school bus screaming my son’s name and running to hug and kiss him…all girls I had never met!
I am thrilled to learn from my neighbors, and they seem to enjoy learning from me. A young Guatamalan man next door frequently drops by with his mail for quick translations. I have had opportunities to give advice about employment and healthcare to various folks in the neighborhood.
With my limited understanding of Spanish (although I am learning quickly), the chitchat can become surreal. Just the other day I asked Elvia if she knew where there was a park close by. She thought I had asked if she parked (her car) close by and she said “Jes.” When I asked “Where?” I could tell she was confused. She was wondering why I was asking her where she parked her car. The conversation got out of hand when I asked her if the park (in her mind, the car) was open. That evening her husband called me at home to figure out what I wanted with their car.
A few days ago I learned the limits of my Spanish. I was out with my son and met a lovely Latina neighbor mama who has a son roughly the same age. All I did was ask her son’s name, but this quickly led to a halting conversation about which apartment she rents in which house, and finally, her husband’s name, and in the end we simplified things. I pointed to my son and said “Sebastian.” She pointed to her son and said “Kevin.” Since then, we limit our conversations to waving at each other from our yards.
You can see that the neighborhood genes are from the same general stock. Almost everyone has black hair and copper-toned skin. This adds further to the confusion as to who is who.
The gardens up and down my street have become adorned with statues of the Virgin Mary, surrounded by tulips and other flowers. The churches have been rented to various South American Christian ministries, and the stores sell largely Latino food. Cruz Market {no relation} is a few doors down, where you can buy plantains and hot pork, rice and bean meals 24 hours a day. Cruz Market is connected to the family’s bar, where most neighborhood Puerto Rican men socialize on Friday and Saturday nights.
With Hispanic passion coursing through the neighborhood veins, sunny days are filled with music and laughter. But there is also the other side, the jealousy that springs from the passion, and there are unspoken rules about boundaries in dating and marriage. A suspicious wife can have her fears confirmed at the local palm reader. A woman scorned is likely to seek help at the Santaria parlor, where a spell can be cast. And a man who has been cheated on (cabron), is justified in taking almost any action he sees fit.
It is almost impossible to distinguish family boundaries around here. Marriage is loosely defined. In fact, at least in Puerto Rican jargon, the word for “wife” is the same word as “woman” (mujer), and just by moving in with a “woman” she becomes your “wife” whether you are legally married or not. Most men have several wives in the course of their reproductive years, and so families grow very quickly to be very large. Mothers and children, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins usually live in one house and eventually in the houses next door and down the street.
I am not sure if my son
will speak more Spanish or English, if he will be called Boricua
or Gringo by his peers, if his skin will turn out to be
dark like his father’s or pasty white like mine. But at
least I have no worries that he will benefit from learning about
his heritage right here at home.
©2004 by Raphaëlla Cruz. The illustration is modified
from one courtesy of the Puerto Rican Folkloric Dance and Cultural
Center website.
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