Half of a whole

“Todos tenemos nombres oficiales y apodos, que son como secretos entre familia.” —Esmeralda Santiago, “Cuando era puertorriqueña”

“Ma-ma-ma,” I imagine my maternal grandmother Virginia, or Mamama to me, enunciating her chosen nickname to little me. Baby me, to be exact. This is Mamama’s favorite story: When I was baby, before I could even walk, let alone talk, she would crouch down next to my crib and slowly pronounce the nickname she wanted her three grandchildren to call her. After she was done enunciating her chosen nickname, she would go on to my maternal grandfather’s (Herman, or Abo to me) nickname. “Ah-boh,” she would make sure to round out her mouth, so we learned exactly how to say it from the earliest age possible.

I obviously have no conscious memory of Mamama’s relentless efforts to ensure my little sister Marcela, my older cousin Jorge Ignacio, and I knew what to call her and Abo and exactly how to pronounce it. I was only a few months old when this master plan of hers began. But whenever she recounts this favorite story of hers, I can’t help but think about how she was made to be a grandmother. More than that, she was made to be a loving caretaker, in every sense of the word.

I have a familial nickname of my own. Ironically, it’s mostly my dad’s side of the family that calls me by this nickname, not my mom’s. There is an exception to this custom, though. Whenever I’m sad or mad or need to be talked to sweetly because if not it appears I will likely combust into thin air, Mamama (my mom Camelia does this, too) calls me “Lela.” Whenever she wants to ask me something in the gentlest way, she will always lead with “Lela.” And that is our little secret.

The story behind the nickname “Lela” is as funny as it is endearing. When my little sister first started talking, she had a lot of trouble learning how to roll her r’s and how to say any words longer than five letters for that matter. So, she took the last three letters of “Graciela” and smacked the letter “L” in front of them, and thus the nickname “Lela” was born alongside my baby sister.

I do believe that, for the most part, actions speak louder than words. But every so often, the clever creation and slow utterance of a soft nickname, even if taught in a relentless, almost aggressive way, that characterizes a person more than their given name does makes interactions slightly, but surely, sweeter.

Mamama’s given name, Virginia, is rough and long and almost makes you instantly think of that one American state when you first utter it. Her friends call her Ginny, a shorter iteration of a seemingly interminable name. But her grandchildren? We call her Mamama, which, if you think about it, is a way of calling her our second mom. Our second Mama. And what a beautiful family secret that is.

***

“Pues yo no voy a aprender inglés pa’ no volverme americana.” —Esmeralda Santiago, “Cuando era puertorriqueña”

“Yo soy puertorriqueña,” Mamama always says. “Yo me siento puertorriqueña.”

The concept of feeling, of being Puerto Rican is complicated, and honestly not very easily understood nor explained unless you are, at your core, Puerto Rican. I was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, as has been everyone on my mom’s side of the family. Mamama, specifically, was born and raised in Ponce, Puerto Rico.

If San Juan is the metropolis of the north, Ponce is the metropolis of the south. People from Ponce are very proud to be from Ponce. It takes around an hour and a half to drive from San Juan to Ponce. The drive is easy; you just mount the freeway until you’re there. On the way, you get a glimpse at the variety that characterizes Puerto Rico’s flora and fauna and the island’s overall ecosystem, from drylands to tall, green mountains that disappear into the clouds, simulating nature’s skyscrapers.

Despite my ancestral ties to Ponce, the first time I went to Ponce was during my senior year of high school in 2022. As this specific academic year went by, I drove to and from Ponce with my mother around four to five times. I would love to say that the motivation behind these drives was cultural enrichment, but it was actually the opposite and quite anticlimactic, so much so that I’m slightly embarrassed to admit it. But in writing about myself and my familial history, I commit to admitting to my truths. In this case, my truth is that the motivating force behind the drives to Ponce with my mother during my senior year of high school was… getting my prom dress made and tailored to my exact liking and body type.

I understand, and want to point out, the irony behind this. I was driving all the way to Mamama’s hometown for the first time, and instead of getting to know more about my maternal grandmother’s past, I was getting a dress tailored for an event inspired by American customs and traditions. I’ve met people from all over the world in college. I’ve specifically engaged with many students that are originally from Latin American countries, from Guatemala and the Dominican Republic all the way to Mexico and Ecuador, and none of them report having had a prom at the end of their senior year of high school. An end-of-year graduation party, sure, but none called the activity a prom.

Yo también me siento puertorriqueña. But when I talk to Mamama about her childhood in Ponce, it feels like we were brought up in two different places. While, yes, San Juan and Ponce are two different municipalities, they are still part of the same island that shares a uniform cultural identity. But while it’s easier for me to write in English, Mamama struggles to form a coherent sentence in the language. I don’t think that it’s not because she doesn’t want to get better at it. She is simply not American; she is Puerto Rican. And while my fluency in English has helped me go further in the collegiate academic environment, I yearn to feel Puerto Rican in the same way that Mamama does.

***

“Yo me sentía como una traidora porque quería aprender el inglés, porque me gustaba la pizza, porque estudiaba a las muchachas con mucho pelo y probaba sus estilos en casa, encerrada en el baño, donde nadie me viera.” —Esmeralda Santiago, “Cuando era puertorriqueña”

But of course, as most things in life, I did it to myself. Among all my Puerto Rican and Latin American friends, I am “la gringa.” I am the one that can speak English with a virtually nonexistent accent. I am the one that can make American friends the easiest, and often with more ease than I can make Latin American friends. I am the one that assimilates the most smoothly, both figuratively and literally, what with my pale skin and my long brown hair and my name that translates to Grace in English and my perfect English and I am, I am, I am. I am American, even though I don’t feel like I am.

I am American because the only passport I have is the American passport because Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory because I don’t have an accent when I speak English. I am praised for my Americanness and I leave my family in awe with the eloquence with which I write in English and the large vocabulary I possess because I’ve been reading chapter books in English since the second grade and I don’t want to be this way anymore.

Mamama gives me her tiny, wide-ruled notebook, the one where she writes every miscellaneous tidbit she doesn’t want to forget in, so I can write down the instructions on how to make an album in the Photos app on her iPhone so she can start making them by herself. “Quieres las instrucciones en español o en inglés?” I ask. “En inglés, mija. Pa’ aprender.”

And so Mamama wants to learn and improve her English, and I want to go back to a time when I felt purely Puerto Rican. I’m the one that wants to be visibly Puerto Rican and speak more Spanish than I do English and read more books in Spanish because in Puerto Rico we speak Spanish and still I am the traitor because I am “la gringa.”

In the midst of this whirlwind of thoughts I write and everyone thinks I’m so smart because “Gracielita lee desde chiquita” and “mira con la destreza que escribe en inglés” and “yo quisiera tener ese vocabulario.” But when all is said and done, what they claim to admire in me fails to fulfill me because all I want to be is more like them.

***

“Una cultura ha enriquecido a la otra, y ambas me han enriquecido a mí.” —Esmeralda Santiago, “Cuando era puertorriqueña”

When I first moved to Michigan for college, I had no predictions for what my four years of collegiate experience were going to look like. I was going to my dream school, and that’s all that mattered to me. Everything else would fall into place as it had to. But, once I got there, that wasn’t the case.

Going in, I didn’t know that there were some pre-set rules I was going to be encouraged to follow throughout my time at Michigan. As a white Puerto Rican woman born and raised in my beloved island, I would be encouraged to befriend not only the other Puerto Ricans that came from the island to Michigan with me (yay!), but also all the other Latin American freshmen. One week in, and there were already cliques forming. People were deciding who was cool, who was not, and who would be in charge of letting new freshmen in or leaving them out of the main friend group.

At this point, I was at a crossroads. I had joined a few student organizations where I had met many a local American, most of them native to the state of Michigan. The majority were the nicest, most agreeable people I’d met so far in college. But, for the first time in my life, I was stuck. For some reason, after a few minutes of conversation with my new American friends, the words would stop flowing out of me. Maybe it was social anxiety, but it was the first time in my life that English didn’t come naturally to me.

Flip the coin around and, as I attempted to make my way into the main Latin American group, I felt instantly rejected. To this day, I sort of feel like I made an outcast of myself, but I just felt too nerdy and dorky and uncool to hang out with these people that seemed like they’d been ruling the school since their freshman year of high school.

All of a sudden, I was in the middle. All of a sudden, I was alone.  

Around a year and a half later, my maternal grandparents, Mamama and Abo, came to visit me at Michigan. They were desperate to meet all my friends and immerse themselves in my new, American life. How would I tell them that I was too American for the Latinos, yet too Puerto Rican for the Americans? How would I tell them I felt like I had no friends?

To my surprise, as I gave them a tour of campus, we happened to walk by many of my “friends” (loose term) from the three student organizations I was most involved in, all of whom I waved to and waved back to me. When I brought them back to my apartment, my three roommates—one Dominican, one Guatemalan, one Puerto Rican—were ecstatic to meet them and welcomed them with open arms.

“Amo tu vida en Michigan! Es el balance perfecto de lo latino y lo americano,” Mamama told me.

“Bravo! Te felicito por crear una vida tan balanceada,” Abo added.

I guess I was two halves of a whole that make a whole, whole. According to my maternal grandparents, I was enriched by both sides of the coin. I was enriched by both cultures. I was two in the same. I was, to put it simply, both.

***

“Ya mujer, soy las dos cosas, una jíbara norteamericana, y llevo mi mancha de plátano con orgullo y dignidad.” —Esmeralda Santiago, “Cuando era puertorriqueña”

I am proud, I am proud, I am proud.

I am both, I am both, I am both.

Three and a half years later, I look at my freshman year self. With pity? With shame? With embarrassment? No. While I do feel bad for her, and I wish I could shake her and wake her and tell her to snap out of it and everything will work itself out and it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, she had to have her own experiences to lead me to where I am now.

Today, I have friends all over. Today, I can say “Yo soy puertorriqueña” because “me siento puertorriqueña” like Mamama and still not utter a single word in Spanish all day until I get back to my apartment late at night. Today, I am not embarrassed that I don’t quite fit in perfectly anywhere, but instead fit in a little bit, everywhere.

In five months, my maternal grandparents will return to Michigan for my graduation and once again take a look at my life. I’m sure they’ll insist that it’s the perfect balance once again. That look at all these friends you have and the varied life you’ve built. What’s different this time is that I agree.

I’m proud of, and more so happy with, the life I’ve created at Michigan. I did end up being too American for some Latinos and too Puerto Rican for some Americans and sometimes I just have off-days and don’t feel like neither or I feel like both and it’s a balance I’m still working on but it’s a balance, nonetheless.

Three and a half years later, I can safely say “me siento puertorriqueña.” I can assuredly say I am proud to be both.