Exile

Each time I return to Puerto Rico, where I grew up until I went off to college at age 16, and where I lived more recently for 13 consecutive years until 2001, I wonder if I did the right thing in leaving again (well, this last time, I had to leave for medical reasons because the treatment I needed wasn't available here).

Each time I return to Puerto Rico I feel like I'm home, basking in the warmth of the people and the culture and the beauty of the place, until the security guard in the building across from my parents blasts his salsa on the radio each Sunday morning for everyone to hear and no one can do a thing about it. The police won't come when they have bigger sharks to fry and the builders won't move a finger to please the people who protested construction of their ugly cement tower in what used to be the last remaining patch of wild greenery in this area, where, if you listened hard at nights, you could distinctly hear the sweet cuuu-cuuuu of the tiny múcaro. A pair of guaragüaos lived and nested here and were seen regularly catching a ride on the currents of warm air while screeching love songs at each other. Now, that is only a memory, and you can hardly hear the coquís serenading the night over the ruckus of the feral cats meowling and fighting each other to the death.

Each time I return to Puerto Rico I feel like I'm home, until I see the lonely stray dogs with their ribs showing or the spaced out addicts on the streets begging or hear about the public school teacher who has to wait each morning for the maintenance workers to clear his classroom of rat feces or hear the corrupt politicians fighting over nothing while the country crumbles into the sea. No wonder so many of our good and honest people pack up and leave even when just as many are determined to stay and make a difference in any way they can.

Why does it feel like it's impossible to change what 500 years of colonialism have produced when there's so many here who want things to be better and when this country is filled with the kindest, smartest, most committed, hardworking people I've known?

I don't have an answer to that. And, believe me, I'm under no misguided impression that living por allá is better because the so-called Americans (a term that really applies to the whole hemisphere, not only the U.S.) have their act together. A few minutes watching CNN (or, better yet, the international news channels) and anybody with sense ought to be disavowed of the impression that Americans, in general, are superior to us or to anyone else.

But I can't stop my heart from breaking each time I come here and I can't figure out why things seem to always stay the same or only to get worse. Every time I return to Puerto Rico I feel like I'm home, yet, truth be told, I'm also not so sad when it's time to go.