José A. Delgado, writing for Puerto Rico’s largest newspaper, El Nuevo Día, covered González’s bigoted statement (found here in Spanish only), which drew a swift response.
Amid her political attack on Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez regarding the debate on Puerto Rico’s political status, Jenniffer González, Puerto Rico Resident Commissioner in Washington generated another controversy by questioning her Puerto Ricanness.
After accusing her of seeking to derail H.R. 8393, Commissioner González stated in a press release that Ocasio Cortez’s intention is “to prevent Puerto Ricans from having (the) power to vote, while she enjoys it in New York. These are the hypocrisies of life, of those who call themselves Puerto Ricans, but are not willing to treat Puerto Ricans as equals”.
Puerto Rican Democratic Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez (N.Y.) – who along with González largely negotiated the content of H.R. 8393 with Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Md.) – questioned the expressions.
The bill proposes a binding plebiscite between statehood, free association, and independence.
Ocasio-Cortez had thoughts.
Veteran Democratic Rep. Nydia Velázquez of New York also responded.
Power4PuertoRico and other organizations issued a strong joint statement condemning González’s attack on AOC and other members of the mainland diaspora.
“As someone who has supported white supremacists and election deniers, we understand that Commissioner González would feel threatened by any attempts to bring transparency, fairness and inclusion to an issue as monumental as the decolonization of Puerto Rico. We also clearly see the classic divide playbook she is applying by trying to question Ocasio-Cortez’s Puerto Ricanness and delegitimize her standing on Puerto Rico issues. It’s cynical, low, hypocritical, and we –as a united transnational community and Caribbean nation– loudly reject it.
“Since the 1800s, the Puerto Rican diaspora has worked in support of our homeland from which U.S. colonialism exported us. We’ve stood for the Puerto Rican flag and our national identity when it was gagged on the archipelago of Puerto Rico, and we were arrested en masse for protesting the U.S. Navy’s bombing of Vieques. No one gets to determine the Puerto Ricanness of the daughters and sons of Borikén, especially someone who has actively endorsed and supported white supremacist leaders here and in the Island.”
Boricuas Unidos en la Diáspora
Carmen Yulín Cruz Soto, former Mayor of San Juan
Carlos Cardona, leader and advocate, New Hampshire
CASA
Florida Immigrant Coalition
Melissa Mark-Viverito, former Speaker, New York City Council
New York City Council Member Alexa Avilés
New York City Council Member Tiffany Cabán
Open Society Policy Center
Power 4 Puerto Rico Coalition
Puerto Rican Cultural Center
Representative Elect Maria Isa Pérez-Vega
State Senator Adam Gómez, Massachusetts
State Senator Gustavo Rivera, New York
VAMOS, Puerto Rico
Javier A. Hernandez, author of PREXIT: Forging Puerto Rico’s Path to Sovereignty and other books on Puerto Rico, made his thoughts known.
Words matter. Hernandez used vendepatria to describe González, which means “traitor”—literally a person who would sell their country. Strong words indeed.
Of course, the debate over Puerto Rico’s current and future status has been a matter of strong feelings, and harsh history, for many years. The reaction to González is not surprising. Few Puerto Ricans have forgotten Gonzalez’s cozying up to Trump post-Hurricane Maria.
RELATED: Caribbean Matters: Five years after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, the suffering continues
González’ recent shift in alliances, combined with her dismissal of mainland Puerto Ricans, is continuing to draw pushback.
I have to admit, knowing DeSantis’ policies toward the LGBTQ community, I was very surprised to see the current Miss International Trans Puerto Rico 2022, Joanna Cifredo, chiming in with support for JGo.
RELATED: Florida adds more homophobic censorship laws to ‘Don’t Say Gay’ suite of bills
Statehood advocacy makes for strange alliances.
RELATED: Caribbean Matters: Unpacking the Puerto Rico statehood debate
I was gobsmacked by Cifredo’s support for González. I reacted, citing this Open Democracy article by Chrissy Sloop in a tweet of my own.
Trans people in Florida are being targeted by their own governor – who ‘desperately wants to be president
Ron DeSantis: worse than Trump
Last week, the state commissioner of education, Manny Diaz Jr., issued a memo to education professionals to reject the Biden administration’s recently issued guidelines on non-discrimination for transgender students.
The memo states that the department of education “will not stand idly by as federal agencies attempt to impose a sexual ideology on Florida schools that risk the health, safety, and welfare of Florida students”.
Of course, there is nothing inherently ‘sexual’ about being transgender, and there is no evidence of any inherent ‘risk’ in allowing trans students to access the bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.
Haller describes DeSantis as “unfortunately, quite clever” at deftly manoeuvring within state politics and the bureaucracy he oversees, identifying means to persecute scapegoated communities in order to “stir a base that is scared of anything perceived as ‘other’”.
To top it all off, González ultimately responded to AOC, saying she wasn’t going to get into a street fight, using the term pelea de barrio.” (Gonzalez perhaps thinks New York Puerto Ricans are all straight outta West Side Story, but that’s just my take.)
I agree with this Twitter user, who gets to the heart of why González’s words were so harmful.
The issues of “Puerto Ricaness” and geographic identity among the diaspora are not new ones, and clearly remain unresolved. According to 2020 Census data, there are about 5.8 million Puerto Ricans on the mainland—that’s 2 million more than on the island.
For those unfamiliar with the term “Diasporican,” it was popularized by Mariposa Fernandez, an award-winning Puerto Rican poet from the Bronx, in her poem, Ode to the Diasporican.
Ode to the Diasporican (pa’ mi gente) (for my people)
Mira a mi cara Puertorriqueña (Look at my Puerto Rican face)
Mi pelo vivo (my lively hair)
Mis manos morenas (my dark hands)
Mira a mi corazón que se llena de orgullo (Look at my heart that fills with pride)
Y dime que no soy Boricua. (and tell me that I am not Boricua)Some people say that I’m not the real thing
Boricua, that is
cause I wasn’t born on the enchanted island
cause I was born on the mainland
north of Spanish Harlem
cause I was born in the Bronx…
some people think that I’m not bonafide
cause my playground was a concrete jungle
cause my Río Grande de Loiza was the Bronx River
cause my Fajardo was City Island
my Luquillo Orchard Beach
and summer nights were filled with city noises
instead of coquis
and Puerto Rico
was just some paradise
that we only saw in pictures.What does it mean to live in between
What does it take to realize
that being Boricua
is a state of mind
a state of heart
a state of soul…¡Mira! (Look!)No nací en Puerto Rico.(I wasn’t born in Puerto Rico)
Puerto Rico nacío en mi. (Puerto Rico was born in me)
Mariposa, born Maria Teresa Fernandez in 1971, is an Afro-Puerto Rican poet who was born and raised in the Bronx, New York. She gained popularity within the Puerto Rican and Latino communities for her spoken word performances and published poems. Her most well-known poem, “Ode to the DiaspoRican,” has influenced many and catapulted her to social media notoriety when young Latinas began posting their own renditions of the poem on You Tube. Fernandez’s poetry is published in numerous publications including Breaking Ground: Anthology of Puerto Rican Women Writers in New York 1980-2012 (2012), The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature (2010), The Afro Latin@ Reader: History and Culture in the United States (2010), CENTRO Journal, and Def Poetry Jam’s Bumrush the Page (2001). She performs nationally and internationally and has graced the stage at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Additionally, her spoken word poetry has been featured on HBO, BET, and PBS. Her poems address a variety of themes, including those related to the transnational experience of mainland Puerto Ricans, the racial identity of Afro-Latinos and the historical influence of Puerto Ricans in the U.S.
[…]JTR: I have taught that poem for a long time, and I’ve seen the YouTube videos. The response from the younger generation is really incredible because they relate to it so well. And I think a lot of it has to do with them really being embedded in the US community, but still feeling some tie to Puerto Rico. Even if they were born here; even if they don’t go very often, or maybe never. They really get it.
MTF: I think one of the reasons why my poetry might resonate with young people is because young people have told me: “Oh, so-and-so said that I wasn’t a real Puerto Rican.” And I just told them, “¡No naci en Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico nacio en mi!” And even my own niece, actually–she’s 19 now, but maybe when she was about 14 or 15, she told me about a conversation that she was having with another teenager who happened to be Dominican, who asked her, “What do you know about Puerto Rico? I bet you don’t know anything about Puerto Rico. I bet you can’t even name five towns in Puerto Rico.” And, because of the poem, she was able to. She was able [laughter] to name Luquillo. Fajardo. And then I think she named San Juan because she knew that was the capital.
JTR: Had she ever been there?
MTF: No. She hasn’t been to Puerto Rico yet. But because of the poem she was able to name Luquillo, and Fajardo, San Juan, which is the capital, and Vieques. Because of everything that she heard about Vieques, the Navy being in Vieques, and the movement to get the Navy out of Vieques. But ultimately, she was able to win the argument by saying, “No naci en Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico nacio en mi.”
My husband is Puerto Rican, and “no nacio en Puerto Rico” ; he was born in Harlem, aka “El Barrio.” I have half-Puerto Rican cousins, and Puerto Rican godchildren. They are proud to be Boricua —whether born here, or over there.
None of them are Republicans. None of them have any respect for JGo. Neither do I—and I don’t have to be Puerto Rican to call her out, either. MAGAs harm us all, island or mainland.
Join me in the comments to discuss, and to check out the weekly Caribbean News Roundup.
