The newspaper photograph must have been taken more than three, maybe four, decades ago when she was a child of five or so. She is sitting on the steps of what appears to be the Capitol in San Juan because of the large marble elephant-leg-looking columns that rise behind her.
She is dressed in a dainty white sleeveless girlie dress, with a billowy skirt and a matching purse and headband surely placed there by her mother in the vain attempts to hold down her unruly black hair. She has chubby arms and hands with pudgy fingers, and the hands are poised demurely, if uncharacteristically so, one on top of the other on her lap.
She is holding a Puerto Rican flag, which flaps in the wind to the right of her face and her expression is priceless. Her dark eyes, framed by dark eyebrows and lashes, are almost slits that turn a little downward at the corners, giving them a slightly Asiatic look (surely the result of one of the many bloods of which she is a product).
Her lips are closed tightly and pursed, her small nose is slightly flared, and the expression in her narrowed eyes clearly cautions the meddling photographer to stay a safe distance away or else. The caption reads "Young Commonwealth fan holds Puerto Rican flag." How she could've been a fan of the Commonwealth (a euphemism for colony) at age five escapes her now, but she sure doesn't look like the fan of anything (except her tightly held flag) in the picture.
She loves this old photograph because it captures so neatly who she is. So much has happened in her life since it was taken, but when she looks at that five-year-old, she still sees herself. She has always loved pretty dresses and she still can issue a sharp warning with her eyes, even if they're now occluded by the coke-bottle-thick lenses she must wear to correct her near-legal blindness.
But most of all she is a full-blooded Puerto Rican, a mix of African and European and perhaps even indigenous legacies. The one who weeps silently every time she listens to Marc Anthony's rendition of Preciosa or Rubén Blades' Patria or Fiel a la Vega's Boricua en la luna.
Some say this is a post-nationalist world where nationalities should not and do not matter, where the global citizen is the future. What she knows is that she comes from a long and illustrious line of Puerto Ricans, on both sides, who have dedicated their lives, in many different ways, to serving their country and their people. And even if she's afar, she's still trying to contribute something, somehow, someway, in her small, voluntary-exile way.
What she knows is that post-nationalist world or not, like in that photograph of old, she still carries her flag and her country in her heart.
Sólo le pido a Dios (excerpt) by León Gieco, translation mine.
Sólo le pido a Dios que el dolor no me sea indiferente.
I only ask of God that I am never indifferent to pain.
Que la reseca muerte no me encuentre
That desiccated death does not find me
Vacía y sola sin haber hecho lo suficiente
empty and alone without having done enough.
She is dressed in a dainty white sleeveless girlie dress, with a billowy skirt and a matching purse and headband surely placed there by her mother in the vain attempts to hold down her unruly black hair. She has chubby arms and hands with pudgy fingers, and the hands are poised demurely, if uncharacteristically so, one on top of the other on her lap.
She is holding a Puerto Rican flag, which flaps in the wind to the right of her face and her expression is priceless. Her dark eyes, framed by dark eyebrows and lashes, are almost slits that turn a little downward at the corners, giving them a slightly Asiatic look (surely the result of one of the many bloods of which she is a product).
Her lips are closed tightly and pursed, her small nose is slightly flared, and the expression in her narrowed eyes clearly cautions the meddling photographer to stay a safe distance away or else. The caption reads "Young Commonwealth fan holds Puerto Rican flag." How she could've been a fan of the Commonwealth (a euphemism for colony) at age five escapes her now, but she sure doesn't look like the fan of anything (except her tightly held flag) in the picture.
She loves this old photograph because it captures so neatly who she is. So much has happened in her life since it was taken, but when she looks at that five-year-old, she still sees herself. She has always loved pretty dresses and she still can issue a sharp warning with her eyes, even if they're now occluded by the coke-bottle-thick lenses she must wear to correct her near-legal blindness.
But most of all she is a full-blooded Puerto Rican, a mix of African and European and perhaps even indigenous legacies. The one who weeps silently every time she listens to Marc Anthony's rendition of Preciosa or Rubén Blades' Patria or Fiel a la Vega's Boricua en la luna.
Some say this is a post-nationalist world where nationalities should not and do not matter, where the global citizen is the future. What she knows is that she comes from a long and illustrious line of Puerto Ricans, on both sides, who have dedicated their lives, in many different ways, to serving their country and their people. And even if she's afar, she's still trying to contribute something, somehow, someway, in her small, voluntary-exile way.
What she knows is that post-nationalist world or not, like in that photograph of old, she still carries her flag and her country in her heart.
Sólo le pido a Dios (excerpt) by León Gieco, translation mine.
Sólo le pido a Dios que el dolor no me sea indiferente.
I only ask of God that I am never indifferent to pain.
Que la reseca muerte no me encuentre
That desiccated death does not find me
Vacía y sola sin haber hecho lo suficiente
empty and alone without having done enough.
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