The Tin Roof

I wake up and its raining. Even before I look outside I know it. The sound of the rain against the tin roof washes over me and it takes me a moment to remember where I am. In that small space of time I am transported back to a childhood now long gone. I half expect to hear my great-grandmother humming to herself while she fixes us our morning breakfast of Farina. I can almost here her gently scolding her small dog Pucho who must have been following her around the kitchen. Or maybe it is Sunday and we'll be having fried eggs, ham and toast along with the Farina. In this small moment I know its only a matter of time before she wanders into where I am sleeping and rouse me from my half slumber to help her get breakfast on the table. Instead, it's the sound of the T.V. that pulls me from my moments of confusion. I am in a small white house with a tin roof, twenty years away from my memories. I can’t help but feel melancholy settling into my heart. I know that it is my duty alone now to rise before everyone else and get breakfast ready. There is no Pucho here, no dog to scold. I shuffle into the kitchen and make my preparations to cook. I scold the refrigerator for leaking water all over the floor, threatening to replace it. Farina has been replaced by grits, ham by bacon, but the eggs stay the same. The husband and the kids like their eggs scrambled with cheese, but I'll fry mine and season them with my nostalgia. I hum a ditty from my memory while I wash the dishes. My five year old comes in the sleep still in his eyes, "is it Sunday?" he asks me. His question makes me realize that despite the fact that my great-grandmother is long gone now I still keep her alive with my habits born from tradition. Despite the fact that I'm am thousands of miles from my family, I am and will always remain the island girl that they raised me to be.

El Mercado

Growing up Puerto Rican was the most normal thing in the world. There are so many things that I took for granted. Piraguas for a quarter, Limbers de Coco for another. The smell of my grandmother's kitchen when the Sofrito hit the hot oil in the Caldero. Eating fresh Mangos off the trees. Kenepas that grew right outside in my grandmother's garden. Climbing trees to gather Carembolas that were both sweet as they were sour. We would chase my grandmother's chickens until she would spank us for agitating her prized fowl. We were wild, my grandparent's mountaintop land was an oasis for us and we never knew anywhere else in the world existed. When night fell the air all around us was full of the sounds of my native land. The Coqui would sing its sweet lullaby and lull me to sleep each night.

Now, twenty years later, all the way across the ocean that separates the states from the tiny island I called my home; I go to the local grocery store in search of some things I need to make dinner for my family. It saddens me that the foods I loved as a child are no longer available to me. My childhood has been reduced to one aisle, International Foods. Our Gandules, Habichuelas, Arroz, Sofrito (in a jar), Malta, Sazon, Adobo, are sitting on the same shelves as tacos, and Asian noodles. Mangos there were free to me everyday are two for three dollars. The platanos that we use to make tostones are already turning by the time they arrive to the market and if we don't cook them that very night they will go bad. Now don't get me wrong I love my life here in Alabama, I have a wonderful husband and great kids. Sometimes late at night when I toss and turn in bed unable to succumb to sleep, I can't help but long for the sweet song of the Coqui to lull me to sleep

Boricua in Alabama Land Part 1

They hear me speak Spanish and automatically assume that I am Mexican. They look down their nose at me as if I don't belong, as if I crossed the border illegally, as if I have no right to be married to my Black husband and raise my mixed children. They talk down to me as if I don't have a Bachelors degree in Business and two years of law school under my belt. All they see is Mexican. I get pulled over and they tell me that they are not even sure if I am supposed to be here, that my social security number is from someplace called Puerto Rico and it may not even be real. The look in my eyes ask the question that is burning to jump out, "are you serious?" If this was up north I wouldn't even have encountered this. I would walk out the door and every other person I saw shared my heritage, knew my culture. Every Puerto Rican Parade we would gather and shut the block down. Waving our mini PR flags in the air and showing the world how proud we were to be who we are. I KNOW who I am. I am one hundred percent, full blooded, I am Island bred, Sancocho fed Puerto Rican. The blood that flows through my veins is that of my Taino, Spaniard and African ancestors. I am a melting pot of kidnapped slave, raped Taino women, and domineering Spaniards. I switch between my native Spanish and my not so native English with such an ease that they call it Spanglish. So why would this be something I should be ashamed of?