Beaming with pride!

Today was one of those days that surprises you not only because of how unexpectedly well things go but also because of the many good things that happen and the possibilities that open up.

Very early this morning, my parents and I readied ourselves to be picked up and driven 40 minutes or so to the University of Turabo, where the panel inaugurating the first degree program in cultural and postcolonial studies in Puerto Rico was held. A young professor friend of my parents picked us up and drove us to the town of Turabo, where the university is located, and lead us to the library, where the event was held.

Once there, we received the wonderful surprise of a tour of the newly created reading room, which includes many of the books that my parents have accumulated through a lifetime of being devoted to study and writing. The reading room also features a TV with a running presentation about my parents and their publications, and it was just too much to assimilate for the three of us.

I couldn't be more proud and more thankful to the university for doing what usually only very rich Anglos who give a lot of money to universities and colleges get in the States. In this case, my parents simply gave their books and decades of their intellectual and teaching labor to that institution. That's what it took, reminding me once more of how we do things so differently here.

After we had toured the reading room and it's adjacent seminar/conference room, whose state-of-the-art design and comfort made me want to teach there some day, we went into the José Luis González Hall where the panel was held. González, the first Puerto Rican cultural theorist, was the one man my father always called: "Maestro."

The panel was fantastic. Definitely one of the very best I've ever had the pleasure (and the honor, in this case) to participate in. I was not just proud of my dad and his presentation (especially considering that less than 2 weeks ago we thought it would be impossible to hold this event with him present) but I also was beaming with pride because I was in the company of so many fellow Puerto Rican academics doing important and interesting work about Puerto Rico. Where I come from, that's a treat I rarely get, if at all.

Thankfully, my presentation about the teaching of postcolonial studies was well received (I must confess to having been quite nervous because one thing is to make a fool of yourself in front of strangers, and quite another to make a fool of yourself in front of your parents and everyone else who knows them and you!). Plus, there is now the possibility that I will be invited to teach a faculty seminar or two in postcolonial studies at the university sometime next summer, and I also found an affiliation home for my junior leave, especially with that fantastic new reading room full of books and documents I know I won't find anywhere else!

All in all, it's been a wonderful day. One of those that don't come too often precisely because that's how we know to appreciate them more. As for me, I'm humbly thankful for the family I was born into, and for the legacy of commitment and strength and challenge that I both inherited and embody. Come what may, nothing will ever change that and that's the truest gift of all.