Personal Journey As A Cultural Being In Puerto Rico

Running head: PERSONAL JOURNEY

Personal Journey as a Cultural Being
in Puerto Rico

Iaan Rodriguez
Carlos Albizu UniversityPersonal Journey as a Cultural Being in Puerto Rico;

Just as Sue Wing Thimble expressed in his book I also learned many life lessons as a Latin American, and even more when you are born and raised in a “pseudo country” like Puerto Pico. Certainly I never knew what it was to live in any kind of racial prejudicewhile I lived on the island, racial issues here are not as marked or problematic as they could be in the United States. Here on the island, the three predominant races European, African and Indian, were melted with each other with the passage of time and formed a single race, one culture, the Puerto Rican culture.
As a Puerto Rican, I can say that I have never felt a clearly defined culturalidentity, which eventually took me on a low cultural self-esteem. I'm sure many Puerto Ricans have felt like me. If we give a look at the history of Puerto Rico we can note that the island has never been an independent country; we have always been in a land at the mercy of another. We have always lived as a colony of another nation. From the time of Spanish colonization, Puerto Rico was a colony. At theSpanish-American War we passed from being a Spanish colony and Spanish citizens to be an American colony and eventually American citizens, from 1898 onwards. All these historical facts have dramatically marked and continue to drive the identity and reality of Puerto Ricans, and therefore mine as Puerto Rican.
I come from a middle class family, fairly typical and conservative. In Puerto Rico thedifferences between social classes are not as marked as in other countries, where the middle class barely exist and where there are large gaps between the upper and lower classes. Here I never knew how is to be discriminated by my skin color because I am white, but if I were either mulatto or mestizo I believe that I would never suffered that kind of discrimination here in Puerto Rico, but maybefor my socioeconomic status.
For years the government of Puerto Rico has tried to implement an interaction between the different social classes. It is notable how housing projects and housing developments have made both the rich and the poor people living close to each other. This social integration has naturally resulted in marriages that consist of both classes, bringing an increase in themiddle classes as I mentioned above. Here it is very common to see children from both classes attending the same school. Therefore it is very easy to be made ​​fun of, not because of your skin color but by your social status. Although currently our cultural integration with the United States is in full swing and we've been gradually giving weight to the racial issue, now it seems that the more whiteyour skin is more privileged you should feel.
Reliving the experiences of my childhood; I can say it was pretty normal, despite being raised by a single mother due to the fact that my father left home when I was only two years old. When I was ten years old, he married another woman and my reality of being an only child for almost ten years changed already. The fact that my father did not live withus, made my relationship with father's side difficult. I barely link up with them, besides of never having a paternal figure. Currently, I have cousins ​​that I have never seen in my life, with almost ten brothers and sisters that my father has, I can imagine that there is a lot people that I do not know. I have a grandmother, the most important lady in my life after my mother, who helped my...