Twenty years ago, shortly after 9/11, I wrote this article for New America Media and it “went viral” in newspapers all over California, including the San Francisco Chronicle/SF Gate. I was 26 years old, trying to understand the bigger story: What was Americans’ role in 9/11? How had we terrorized other people and other cultures?
Twenty years later, as the U.S. leaves Afghanistan and the Taliban returns to power and the media spotlight, I’m thinking about terrorism/imperialism/colonialism again, in a new light.
So, How the Heck is Vieques?
My fiancé gave me that headline. He’s pretty clever and corny. And loveable.
Anyways, I am 46 now and even though the U.S. Navy left Vieques in 2003, the island still has a disproportionately high cancer rate according to The Atlantic and Airbnb rentals and American real estate investors are the new invaders according to PRI The World.
So…does this mean the headline in 20 years will be “Real Estate Investors and Tourists Living in and/or Who Visited Vieques are Dying from Cancer?” Perhaps that’s a headline that will matter.
Ha. I was gonna end this post there because it’s short, sweet and punchy. But another question just popped into my head: Is there a coalition of mainland first generation Puerto Ricans (like me) who have been educated on the mainland and are now making money, who are aware of our roots and colonialist history, that are investing in property in Puerto Rico? You know, like taking back/reclaiming the land our great grandparents had to give up in order to “build a better life” for us bratty, ungrateful kids? This article in Time kinda answers my question by highlighting mainland activist groups like Diáspora en Resistencia, a nonprofit that encourages Puerto Ricans overseas to get politically engaged, and grassroots activist collective #AbolishAct60, whose name refers to the tax break laws in Puerto Rico that have benefitted rich gringo social media influencers and crypto currency tycoons, but not the actual Puerto Ricans who remain unrepresented in our American Democratic system. But these groups are still working from the mainland.
Maybe because I am 46 and a stepmom, I am becoming more conservative, but Imma say it – the US is not the world’s mom. It seems like after more than 100 years of colonization, Puerto Ricans need to take care of Puerto Rico. What does that look like from my POV? It means:
- Both mainland Puerto Ricans and island Puerto Ricans need to work together to make Puerto Rico a U.S. state so it has proper representation.
- Mainland Puerto Ricans (like me) who have the financial means and an interest in our historical roots should buy back/invest in land on the island at a higher rate than gringos with no ties/roots to the land.
- Mainland Puerto Rican politicians (like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) should work with island Puerto Ricans to empower the people, restore the economy, construct hurricane-proof buildings and then leap them in a single bound…
OK, maybe because I am 46 and author of several comic book stories (Super Gringa, Dr. Nutmeg’s Femmebots), I realize my list of suggestions above reads like fiction. One of the reasons I switched from journalism to fiction writing is because of fiction’s power to inspire, whereas journalism/politics perpetuates the status quo misery.
And this is where journal-writing/blog-writing gets interesting (at least for me but prolly not for you) because I am processing ideas in my mind in real time. I think Imma write a story called, “La Borinqueña Meets Super Gringa.” How will it be different from some of the stuff I’ve attempted in the past like “Hula Hoops for Puerto Rico” or “Barrio Solar Restores ‘POWER’ to Puerto Rico via Gravity Lights and Solar Panels“?
Hmm. The most important thing for me to remember is that I am now focusing on JUST the writing. The story. I’m not thinking about recording a podcast or shooting a video for YouTube, I am just thinking about the actual story, the words and the relationship between these two characters. Wow. What a relief! So nice to focus in my old age.
The other thing I just thought of is that when I moved to Baldwin Park, a development that used to be a Navy Base, located directly across the street from my old middle school, I had started writing a “young adult” novel (or YA as the publishing industry popularly refers to books for young adults) about a Puerto Rican girl from New York moving to Orlando just before middle school in the late 1980s. It is directly based on my own experience so I feel good about that, I’ve got a ton of journals with authentic material and a stepdaughter just starting middle school this year. But I had thrown in a transgender Puerto Rican kid from the island as her best friend in order to explore some of the issues I’d been thinking about, like the fact Puerto Rico has the highest murder rate of transgender people, and that Orlando is where the Pulse Shooting happened, and more personally, to explore some of my own uncomfortable/competitive GenX feminist feelings about former boys competing with girls in sports. And why does Dorian Electra annoy me? And why was my first attempt at writing a novel (SIRENS) about trans prostitutes in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood? And bro. The feedback from my Orlando Public Library writing group toward the first scene I shared with them was:
The scene I workshopped with them did not feel authentic to them because kids in the 1980s couldn’t even know they were gay or come out as gay, let alone have any vocabulary for identifying as transgender. So I asked the members of my writing group very earnestly: “Do any of you know a transgender person I can co-write this with?”
Dang. Thank God for their honesty! Gotta be authentic, so what is my real story here? I’m thinking I can just write my own story/experience, which is about a Puerto Rican girl moving from New York to Orlando, the new diaspora. She becomes best friends with a girl whose mom is a Lesbian. That is true. Perhaps I can fictionalize my best friend’s origins. Like, instead of being just a white girl, she can be a white girl who just moved from Vieques because her parents, who worked for the U.S. Navy, were stationed there…although I don’t even know if that is possible because none of the myriad articles online about Vieques says anything about the actual Navy people living on the base. Maybe I can find a good old fashioned book at the Orlando library that will tell me.
Either way, I think this YA story I started writing will be about the budding friendship of two regular girls who grow up to become “Super Gringa” and “La Borinqueña.”
Update: As of 2023, my YA story is unfolding as a fictional series called MODEL RICANS on Wattpad and USA Today commemorated the 20th anniversary of the U.S. Navy leaving Vieques, although cancer rates still remain high there.