Paradise Lost: My Mixed Feelings About Leaving Puerto Rico — and Why So Many Are Getting Out
By Demi Rodriguez
Every summer, New York City radiates with Puerto Rican pride. We shimmy to the sexy sounds of La Marqueta’s Salsa Saturdays on 116th and Park Avenue. We march down Fifth Avenue at our annual parade, flags draped on our shoulders, then hop from stand to stand in the East Harlem streets feasting on arroz y abichuelas, pernil, and pastelillos.
I call New York City home. My family left the island in two decades ago, joining so many others who fled to find better lives. As the debt problem gets worse — a crisis that the recent U.S. bailout will not solve– Puerto Rico will continue to lose citizens, but at an even faster pace. The population of Puerto Ricans in New York surpasses one million and more of us now live in the U.S. than on the island.
Yes, my family and I got out, but I continue to look back at the island of my birth with sadness and alarm. Our memories of Puerto Rico as “paradise” are fast fading, replaced by the reality of “paradise lost.”
Puerto Rico loses a doctor every day, and people leave their houses vacant, as they can no longer afford to stay. Harsh conditions on the island are pushing people out, especially the kind of young professionals who could make a difference. Opportunity has been replaced by unemployment, low wages, high taxes, crumbling schools, a lack of services — including clean water, consistent electricity, public transportation and safe roads. Now the Zika virus has invaded at a time where there aren’t enough doctors on the island.
Although leaving Puerto Rico only hurts the economy more, I understand the need to get out; moving to the mainland provided better job opportunities for my mom and support from our family who lived here.
I was born on the eastern part of Puerto Rico, in a city called Fajardo. People from our area are often referred to as “cariduros” — stubborn, hardhead. When I was three, my mom decided to join my grandparents and uncles in Orlando. This wasn’t my mom’s first time leaving Puerto Rico. Before I was born, she lived in New York, but moved back after I was conceived. Eventually, she made her decision to finally leave out of necessity: She was 16 with two cariduras that she had to take care of.
My grandmother left the island even before my mother did, but neither one relocated until they felt they had no other choice. One of my uncles was diagnosed with leukemia at a young age. After several attempts at treatment, doctors in Puerto Rico told my grandmother that he had three hours to live, and his only chance of survival was visiting a doctor in New York City. My family scrambled, flew three hours to New York in time for my uncle to see a doctor. He survived.
I am grateful that my family kept a tight grip on our culture — in my grandmother’s refusal to speak English, my mom’s cooking that dripped in island pride, and the sounds of drums, trumpets, and guitars that followed them through the good and bad times. They passed the language, food, and music down to me, helping me keep my grasp on our culture and traditions.
New York City, specifically Harlem, helps feed the void Puerto Ricans feel after leaving their island. It also gives us the opportunity to share our culture with others. Harlem might not have the mango trees and white sandy beaches, but we can always find a Puerto Rican flag flying out someone’s apartment window or waving by on someone’s car.
I struggle to hold onto my memories of Puerto Rico but most have been replaced by my Nuyorican past and present. Still, the deliciously sunny island holds my first steps, my family history, and memories of my grandparents encouraging me as I moved clumsily to their favorite salseros. Leaving made sense for us, but my heart breaks for island and its people — both here and there — forced to utilize the dual citizenship because the island is no longer livable.
