From Study to Reflection, Part 1: Unpacking Puerto Rico’s Past and Present

Some Context - The 2010s

Tracing My Journey Back to Puerto Rico

As I was planning on writing this piece about my recent travels to Puerto Rico, I was reflecting on how far I should take it back. My first time in Puerto Rico was in 2012, but a lot has changed in that time. I never wrote about my experience before and so, I think it makes sense to start at the beginning.

In my early 20s, I spent a summer in PR (this was a while ago!), studying Political and Social Movements under Dr. César J. Ayala and Dr. Mark Sawyer (RIP—such a brilliant mind). That experience connected me to activism on the island and deepened my understanding of Puerto Rico’s political, economic, and social realities. I was back on the Island, only for the second time in my life this past January, and yet it feels like going back home somehow. I brought my sister this time around and she affirmed that there is something about the Island that captivates and holds your heart. It might be the way the sun warms your bones, the sound of maracas drifting through the air as people gather to dance down random cobblestone streets. Perhaps it’s stumbling around cobblestones and pastel colored buildings that are part of the first European establishments in the Western Hemisphere. A lot has happened in the last 500+ years and you can feel that history - heavy, yet radiating with life and a type of creative DIY energy.

The Strange Sentiment of Belonging

To be honest, I want to resist sounding weird - there is always something odd about tourists that feel connected to a place they only spent a bit of time at. This year I spent a couple weeks in the Caribbean - Puerto Rico and Jamaica. Very different historical realities and cultures, yet both bring up a feeling of a distant home, one where some things don’t need to be explained. I don’t have Caribbean roots (that I know of) but I am part of the African diaspora. A friend explained that African culture can feel much more pronounced in the Caribbean because there was less systematic cultural erasure of African cultural traditions compared to the United States. Perhaps this connection is ancestral—a deep, diasporic pull in my bones.

Lessons in Power and Politics: The Caribbean as a Case Study

In my undergraduate course work at the University of California, Santa Barbara, I examined the American system of slavery, racial capitalism, and politics of mixed race identity, including the One Drop Rule and colorism, that came out of United States systems. Alongside these studies, I took courses in Caribbean and Latin American political economy. In one of those courses I remember watching Life and Debt, a documentary that looks at the effects of globalization on Jamaican industry and agriculture, as well as trends in the larger Caribbean region. Once free from colonialism and slavery, they encountered a new structural barrier: continued economic domination from Western countries. International institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and Inter-American Development Bank, along with modern globalization policies, have significantly influenced Jamaica’s economic development. IMF loans, in particular, come with conditions that require former colonial nations to adopt economic Structural Adjustment Policies (SAP), often forcing them into difficult financial and social trade-offs like healthcare, education, and social welfare programs. The result? Declines in public health, literacy rates and increased poverty and inequality - inequity by design.

The SAP that always gets me is the forced dependence on imported goods like fruit and vegetables. SAPs often push countries to remove trade barriers and subsidies for local farmers, making it cheaper to import foreign goods than to produce domestically. Caribbean islands literally have the perfect climate - with their fertile lands and perfect climates - to sustain themselves with local agriculture! And yet these measures disincentivize food production, reinforcing the same cycles of economic dependence and inequality that colonialism created, and limiting true economic self-determination for nations like Jamaica.

Why Puerto Rico? A Personal and Political Curiosity

My decision to go to Puerto Rico was shaped by my understanding of these policies and my exploration—both personally and academically—of the flexible and mutable nature of race.

Part of my initial interest in Puerto Rico was the fact that I was (and still am) consistently publicly racialized as Latina—often seen as Puerto Rican, Dominican, or Brazilian—despite identifying as Black/European. My racial identity is frequently challenged - “Are you sure you are not Puerto Rican?” “How can you know, it’s probably in there somewhere!” This becomes confusing to me since nearly all Black North Americans have mixed ancestry, and I do not believe their identities are consistently challenged. Maybe it’s just my personal face but I wanted to see the people and have these conversations at the source, thus Puerto Rico became a destination for me to personally explore the racial politics of the Caribbean and Latin America.

While all of these questions were swirling in my mind, I was also tempted by the late night salsa clubs, beautiful tropical climate, beaches and promise of adventures around the island.

The Program: A Crash Course in Puerto Rican History and Resistance

With all of these factors floating around, I signed up to study Political and Social Movements in Puerto Rico through the UCLA Travel Study Program.

The structure of the program was a couple long seminars a week and then excursions once a week on Fridays. In class we learned about the history of Puerto Rico - from original indigenous Taino inhabitants, the subsequent colonial relationships with Spain starting in 1493, followed by the system of sugarcane plantation slavery that brought Africans to the Island in 1518, and the 1898 Spanish–American War where Puerto Rico was invaded and subsequently became a colony of the U.S. In class we compared Puerto Rico’s historical realities to those of other countries in the Americas, examining slavery, the plantation economy of the Spanish Caribbean, and the corresponding roots of economic underdevelopment in the region.

We also had a number of excursions around the island. We shuffled through 16th century Viejo San Juan, taking in San Felipe del Morro, San Cristóbal fortress, and the old fort city walls, stopping for a mojito here and there. We explored the realities of ongoing projects of American imperialism, like the environmental and human rights violations of the U.S. Naval Base in Vieques. One Friday afternoon we ate soup and sandwiches with a local organizing group that had led protests for decades and successfully pushed out the US military in 2003. Locals shared stories of friends and loved ones who are sick from the military bombings and experiments performed on the island. We studied Puerto Rico’s complex political status—not an independent nation, not a U.S. state, but an unresolved colonial territory.

Puerto Rican coqui

Beyond the Classroom: Our Own Adventures

Between the actual Travel Study course work and excursions, we had our own adventures - daily trips to the beach, found cheap meals at local cafés, where we met other university students. We assembled a crew - us anti-colonial University of California students with UPR students living in the actual realities of the colonial relationship, sharing how their lives and educational experiences were being shaped by these realities in real time.

Were introduced to Diego through one of the servers that worked at a local diner we went to a few times. The woman was gorgeous - she looked like Rihanna. I cannot remember specifics of the moment we met Diego and his friend J, a soft-spoken Afro-Puerto Rican veteran with health challenges that came from his time in service, but we hung out all summer. We packed into Diego’s tiny car and bopped around the island to hidden waterfalls and nightclubs, and karaoke at El Daiquiri Lounge, where the owner Freddie greeted us warmly for a nightcap and pushed us up on stage to sing songs. We roamed around Viejo San Juan, stayed up all night dancing at La Factoría, sipped Chichaito, and generally immersed ourselves in the Island as much as we could. The Travel Study program was housed at a pretty fancy hotel at the Isla Verde resort district, but we got out of that area when we could, not appreciating the touristy vibe and entitled people that came along with that. That being said, I loved Isla Verde Beach West and spent a lot of time dunking myself in the ocean.

Puerto Rico challenged and reshaped my understanding of race. I was able to see the nuances of Puerto Rican racial categories in real time, the categories reflecting the complex history of Indigenous, African, and European ancestry, as well as Spanish colonial and U.S. racial classifications. Puerto Rico resists rigid racial categories imposed by the U.S. by allowing for racial fluidity.

In Puerto Rico I was understood more as part of the national identity - first as Puerto Rican, and second as a mixed person with Black and European ancestry. Everyone just assumed I was Puerto Rican, when I didn’t speak Spanish they just assumed I was a Puerto Rican who tragically never learned Spanish. I clarified many times that I am not Latina nor Puerto Rican. When I shared my background, many affirmed, That’s the same as Puerto Ricans! It was here that I lived the distinction between race and ethnicity.

The island is not perfect - anti-Blackness and colorism are very present in Puerto Rico’s history and social structures. Lighter skin, European features, and straight hair are often idealized, while darker skin and kinky hair are marginalized. Anti-Blackness and racism exist, and inequity is different than in the US.

Still, it felt good to be around all Black and brown people; I felt a sense of belonging I especially didn’t feel during my time at UC Santa Barbara (which was less than 3% Black at the time)

Leaving with a Heavy Heart

As my summer in Puerto Rico came to an end, I felt a deep sadness—not just from leaving this beautiful place, but from the weight of its political and economic realities. I had arrived just before the 2012 Puerto Rican status referendum, a direct vote in which the public was asked to decide on the political status of the Island, deciding between statehood, free association, and independence. It seemed like there was a growing desire for independence (though I may have been projecting, influenced by the company I kept and what I was learning in class). Regardless, I have always known that Puerto Rico deserves more than what it has been given throughout history.

I had promised myself that I would return to Puerto Rico for Fiestas de la Calle de San Sebastián one day. Time passes quickly. It wasn’t until 2025 that I finally made it back—now a working woman in my mid-30s with disposable income, married, and bringing my 20-year-old sister to the island, close in age to when I first experienced Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico had also changed, with escalating tensions over violent mainland tourists facing no consequences and an influx of wealthy Americans driving gentrification and displacing working-class Puerto Ricans. Since I left PR has had three referendums in the last 12 years. Statehood has consistently been the most popular option, while independence remains a minority position, though it gained a higher percentage in 2024 compared to past referendums. The referendums are non-binding, meaning any change in Puerto Rico’s political status still requires U.S. congressional approval. No action has been taken as a result of these referendums and yet, frustration at the colonial status and second class treatment of locals continues.

Fourteen years had passed since I last set foot on the island, but as I stepped off the plane in January 2025 and the warm humidity hugged my body, a mix of anticipation and fear arose. Puerto Rico had been a place of discovery, of transformation in my early 20s — what would it be now?

Nicole

[Stay Tuned for Part 2 - Coming soon]