Adiós mi amor Puerto Rico

photo by Adam Pinkney

Adiós mi amor Puerto Rico

By Adam Pinkney

Two weeks on an island was the best Christmas and new years gift I could have ever received. In these two weeks I learned a lot about the rich history and culture of Puerto Rico. I fell in love with the people, food, music, and beaches. No other place I have ever visited compares to Puerto Rico. I felt so welcome and did not want to come back home. However, back to reality and I cannot forget the amazing effect this beautiful Island had on me.

I will also never forget the awesome group of classmates that shared in my experiences. This was the best group of friends I could have asked for on this trip. We all smiled, laughed, and pretty much cried when we had to leave. My two professors and TA were also of great support on this trip and they made a perfect team.

Learning about the history of a place while being in the place was the best learning experience I have ever had. We actually went to the historical sites and absorbed the sites and sounds of places such as El Yunque rainforest, Vieques, Quanica dry forest, and bioluminescent bay to name a few. The local people are so loving and caring. They do not discriminate on the basis of race or skin color because the Puerto Rican race is so varied. Puerto Ricans are made up of Taino Indian, Spanish, and African.

For a person that has never visited the island, I would first suggest to them a tour guide named Jose Pereira. He is an awesome guide and you will fall in love with him. I also fell in love with every other native that I came in contact with. No one was rude; they were all nice and loving. One tip would be to make sure and pack a ton of bug spray.

Finally, the intangibles that I walk away with are emotions. I have never loved and felt so loved as much as I did in Puerto Rico. The beautiful sounds and smells of the island will dwell with me forever. The most important intangible, which I will soon turn into tangible, are the ideas I have been coming up with for my graduate project. I will be making a documentary of Puerto Rico in some sort of fashion.

Just Do It

By Clint Sloan

We stood there in the middle of a large crowd, accompanied by the sounds of crying children and the presence of signs warning about the Swine Flu. We stayed stationary for about thirty minutes, and then started to move slowly toward the large boat. It was time to go to the island – the beautiful island of Vieques.

Vieques would be a place of beauty and amazement. The Puerto Rico tourism industry bragged about Vieques’ beautiful white beaches and snorkeling opportunities. The island was also home to one of a handful of bioluminescent bays in the world, a bay that glows when the water is disturbed. Even though the tourism industry would brag about these attributes of the island, they would attempt to hide the island’s dark history.

The day after we got settled in our hotel, I picked up a map of Vieques. I noticed that the eastern and western parts of island stated “restricted area.” The island’s middle section was the only region containing residents of the island. These facts struck my interest, and the next day I would find out exactly what happened on this island so many years ago.

During the Korean Conflict, the U.S. Navy used Vieques for training exercises. They required all residents to move from the eastern and western parts of the island to the middle. According to Roberto Rabin, a member of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques, “the fifty years that the Navy has been operating in Vieques can be classified as a half century of environmental disaster.” The bombing has contaminated the soil and the air. This contamination has caused the people to be more susceptible to diseases; the morality rate for cancer in Vieques is 34 percent higher than in Puerto Rico. Also, 45 percent of Viequenses have toxic levels of mercury. This left the people of Vieques in an unprecedented position; they are now isolated residents fighting the world’s superpower.

The people of Vieques took the streets in protest of the U.S. Navy’s continued bombings of the island. Even though they were protesting, it looked like a fiesta filled with food and dancing. They continued protesting for many years, and it all seemed hopeless.

But a man was killed because of one of the U.S. Navy’s training exercises, and the people became even more furious. Finally in 2003, the U.S. Navy decided to halt all military exercises on the island and have been trying to improve conditions on the island ever since.

This trip has helped me realize that life is truly a precious gift. A lot of Puerto Ricans continue to live in poverty. But despite this, they seem to be full of life. We have everything we could ever want in Oklahoma, but most people seem to be unhappy or not content with what they have. The people of Vieques know how precious life is. Even though they did not have much, they stood up to the world’s largest superpower. If you want to do something, just do it. Remember, everyone dies. But not everyone truly lives.

The Exquisiteness of a People

The Exquisiteness of a People

Zaina Al Ghabra

January 12, 2010

Waking up at the crack of dawn in order to leave a place of joy, beauty and history wasn’t easy. As excited, as we all were to get home to our pets, our beds and our daily routines, a feeling of sadness remained lurking deep within us. Before embarking on this journey, I expected to encounter only feelings of happiness and fun and come across beautiful beaches and beautiful people. However, leaving Puerto Rico, I feel as though I have really gotten to know her, her insecurities, her pain and her long history, which are masked with happiness, beauty, nature, music and pride.

First and foremost, most people visiting the Island are unaware of the intrinsic nature of its evolving history. The Puerto Rican people are not strangers when it comes to stories of war, and fighting for justice in the name of their land and their roots. When the United States of America won Puerto Rico from the Spanish in 1898 that was only the beginning of an agenda to wipe out Spanish as a language and as a culture. However, the Puerto Ricans, so proud of their heritage and roots which involve a mixture of Taíno, African, Spanish, European and even Middle Eastern, fought long and hard to keep their culture alive. After all, this fusion of cultures is what truly makes a Puerto Rican a Puerto Rican.

Like any other tourist, of course we visited the beautiful beaches and the amazing wonder of the rainforest. Adding on to the Islands mystical beauty was the bioluminescent bay, where we kayaked through mangroves in darkness, our paths only lit by the magnificent stars above us. What makes this bay so unique is the amount of dinoflagellates (a plankton) that is present in the bay, thus creating a sparkle of stars when you inject your hand into the water. According to the website of the bay, “Imagine a lagoon full of Tinkerbells fairy dust! Pure magic, the experience is actually indescribable.”

However, beneath all the fascinating things the Island offers, I found myself first identifying with the people at the Three Kings Festival, where everyone played a role in the parade and the aftermath of the celebration. People were unified, expressing the love of their culture while commemorating the Three Kings. Being from Palestinian descent, I felt a level of nationalism and pride that I thought only existed amongst the Palestinian people. The amount of emotion expressed at this parade was overwhelming and therefore, I felt as though I had bonded not only with the people, but also with Puerto Rico.

Approaching our final days, we visited the Island of Vieques, where we learned about the injustices enforced on the people living here. The US navy has been using this Island as a location to practice tactical military operations. Besides the fact that the people here were forced to relocate from the outskirts of the Island to the center of the Island, they are constantly living with sounds of bombs exploding, rattling doors and dangerous chemicals floating in the air. More so, due to all the chemical radiation, the amount of sickness and disease spreading on this Island is far greater than any other city or Island in Puerto Rico. Watching a short video composed by students who visited Vieques, I found myself overwhelmed with emotion. Seeing the Puerto Rican people protesting wholeheartedly against the injustices they faced, paralleled with the struggle of the Palestinians.

Being able to identify with the Puerto Rican people was perhaps the finest experience I gained on this astonishing Island. My story does not end here, this may have been the first time I visit Puerto Rico, but it definitely won’t be the last.