Unikum 08 October nett

mistaken for African Americans or Haitians and vice versa.
One of my Puerto Rican teachers related stories of Indian men
singling her out to flirt with.
Sharing the same language and similar appearance can bring
people together. Differences can lead to sharp divisions and
imagined hostilities. I have often felt and misunderstood
the tensions between Dominicans and Puerto Ricans. In my
neighborhood there were Dominican bodegas and Puerto
Rican bodegas. The Dominican bodegas played merengue. The
Puerto Rican bodegas played salsa. In both, Central Americans
were the stock clerks or butchers. Also, they sold very similar
variants of the same foods.
Puerto Ricans are US citizens. In my opinion, this created
resentment among them and other Latin Americans.
Dominicans have to apply for visas and resident permits.
Otherwise, they risk illegal immigration. However, they lived
in the same neighborhoods as Puerto Ricans, and competed
for the same jobs with the disadvantage of being born on the
island that wasn’t a US territory. Or they could be more easily
exploited by employers. No green card? You get half the pay.
Don’t like it? Take a walk.
My mother once set an odd precedent by warning me not to
spend time with my babysitter’s son. That is correct, a boy my
age was out playing and probably roughing it in the streets of
NYC during the early 80s. He was learning how to breakdance,
play NYC style basketball and throw graffiti tags up. I was
indoors watching a cartoon rabbit terrorize a hunter with
a speech impediment, or a housecat and mouse try to maim
each other in an epic battle for access to the feast housed in
the refrigerator. His mom was my babysitter while my mom
worked. They were friends. A Dominican woman and my
Puerto Rican mom. My mom thought he spent too much time
en la calle/in the street. That he was too wild. That he was a bad
influence on me. Was this a colonial legacy rearing its head?
I was in Catholic school! If Catholic education wasn’t good
enough to keep me from becoming a common thug, what was
the point of sending me there for 7 hours a day, 5 times a week,
9 months of the year? The irony is, he was one of my protectors.
I wasn’t tough. I needed him to navigate the hierarchy in the
neighborhood. Among others, he kept an eye on me that I didn’t
always know was there.
In the US media, Spanish speakers could be lazy alcoholics or
nosy neighbors. They were portrayed as emotionally volatile,
obsessed with dancing or as insanely jealous casanovas. They
were often the “troubled youth” on episodes of police dramas
or family sitcoms. A typical storyline could be something like:
Juan isn’t a bad kid. His older brother is in a street gang and
the local shop just got robbed. Officer Murphy thinks he can
get Juan to give up his brother. Sure, I saw people like these
in my community but these personalities were just as present
in other cultures too. We didn’t have a monopoly on less than
desired personality traits.
On the Latin American channels like Telemundo or GalaVision,
I saw serious or comedic interviews with politicians, artists and
musicians from all over the world. Additionally, I witnessed
the hip emphasizing gyrations of Iris Chacon, who hosted some
kind of variety show from Puerto Rico. My mother discouraged
me from being corrupted by her as well, and changed the
channel. Not only was I being shielded from the streets, my
hibernating libido was in no danger of awakening (thanks,
mom!). There was Walter Mercado, a gifted and flamboyant
“psychic” who made appearances on different programs. He
dressed like a Las Vegas magician. Charo was often invited to
appear on many US talk shows. Outside the US, she was known
as a talented singer and flamenco guitarist. American media
always reduced her to a caricature of a Latin American woman:
shrill voiced and thickly accented.
Further, I didn’t understand why there were so many jokes in
US culture at the expense of Latin Americans. They can do the
job but so slowly. They don’t work and often steal. They sleep
so much. They never sleep because they are always having
house parties at night. They have drinking or drug problems.
They have so many kids. They are so poor. They never legally
immigrate, etc. In recent years, many contemporary comedians
often joke about the Mexican work ethic, the quality of their
house parties, the great street foods and aftermath of nights
that began with tequila shots. Is this progress? Maybe it is
not ideal, but I would say so. It can make people curious and
appreciative of the cultures outside their own. Personally
speaking, I want to know what people think of one another.
I wish people were more curious about each other. We can
learn a lot by asking one simple Swiss army knife of a question,
which I invite you to use on a fellow neighbor or student:
Y de donde eres?
OCTOBER 2022 UNIKUM NR 8 21