HERITAGE MATTERS

Tag: travel

  • Shared Shores: The Legacy and History of Puerto Ricans in the U.S. Virgin Islands

    Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands have always shared a kinship with each other. They have shared struggles, similar narratives, and due to the migration of Puerto Rican families to the Virgin Islands throughout the years, it has fostered a new shared memory, identity and culture. The history of Puerto Ricans in the Virgin Islands is building home away from home. 

    The US took occupation of Puerto Rico from Spain in 1898 during the Spanish-American War. The shift from Spanish colony to US colony took place, although they call it a “commonwealth” these days. The US purchased the Virgin Islands from Denmark in 1917 for a price of $25 million dollars. They shifted from Danish colony to US colony, although they call is an “unincorporated territory” these days. Both places are not part of the US state system, are not allowed to vote for president or US politics, only local elections, but each’s residents are considered US citizens. 

    With the US in charge, migration between Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands increased. Other impacting issues such as economic changes, labor shortages in the Virgin Islands, and hardships in Puerto Rico, created opportunities for Puerto Rican workers to find more stability. Many families came from recommendations from their friends or family who had gone ahead looking for prospects of a better life. 

    Those who took the chance to leave all that they knew behind them, move to a new place with a new language, no connections, no family, had to start over with nothing. They built new lives, new communities, assimilated, they opened small businesses, filled the gaps, and integrated into their new home. Throughout time, their children and grandchildren would see the Virgin Islands as home. 

    One thing that the Puerto Ricans never left behind was their culture. In family get togethers the sound of music and singing was front and center, the smell of arroz con gandules cooking in the kitchen, families joining together to celebrate any and every event. But, as much as they retained their cultural traditions, they adapted to learn and apply their new home’s cultural customs. They and their children became bilingual, even learning Virgin Islands Creole in daily conversations. Tables now adorned with pasteles and kallaloo, tostones and fungi, and coquito and guavaberry rum. 

    For those who migrated to the Virgin Islands, their identity is multilayered – they have a dual sense of belonging, one to their ancestral ties of Puerto Rico and, one to the Virgin Islands. For many later generations of these families, they just see themselves as Virgin Islanders with Puerto Rican heritage. There is great pride for both cultures and identities, equally.

    It has not always been such an easy dynamic though. Differences in culture, language and access to resources has sometimes caused conflict and tension. Many Puerto Ricans came to the Virgin Islands with nothing more than themselves and their families, whatever they had they took to pay their way, and they had to find work immediately to survive. Many times neighborhood families from Puerto Rico found themselves in the Virgin Islands and supported one another, lifted each other up, and were the village each other needed to get a step up. 

    My family was one of these families that migrated from Puerto Rico. My grandfather left Ceiba, came with his siblings and parents in the 1930s to St. Thomas when he was a young boy. They left jobs as generational cane cutters in Puerto Rico to become farm workers in St. Thomas. They joined resources as a family and saved everything they had to go into business for themselves as grocers and from there kept saving till they could purchase family land. My grandmother left Vieques as a young girl for St. Croix before relocating to St. Thomas as a young woman. She worked in the St. Thomas Apothecary until she met my grandfather. But they and the rest of my family were always larger than life characters in the community, there was always food for whoever might stop by the house, family or not, community was everything to them. This was their home, where their life had played out and where their happiness and pride found peace.

    I am thankful for the many stories my abuela instilled in me growing up, owning my cultural pride, identity, the stories of my people. I am thankful for the community life my abuelo modeled, teachings about nature, people, plants and herbs. Because of them I carry a deep appreciation for my ancestors and their legacy, as well as the place we now call home which holds so much memory, moments, feelings, and pride. 

  • Owning the Aftermath: Preserving the Buildings & Spaces Our Enslaved Ancestors Built

    Caribbean wide and across the African diaspora, the tangible efforts of enslaved people still remain. Their blood, sweat, and tears, literally, is within the materiality of many of these places that stand in our city centers. So often they are regarded as elitist reminders of colonialism, but truly, above all, they are monuments to the resilience of our people. It was our people who built these roads, structures, fortresses, … it is their legacy. And, it is time we claim their legacy completely and intentionally.

    Some might say preserving these places and spaces is about venerating our ancestors’ oppressors, but its more about setting the story straight. It is about telling the truth, honoring their legacy, their efforts, and restoring ownership of narratives that have been biased or fabricated. These are more than mortar and bricks and rocks. They once bore witness to the suffering, resistance, and also the care put into forming them. The cobblestones you walk down were once laid down brick by brick by your ancestors, the rocks in the wall you pass by on your way to your favorite restaurant downtown, were carefully lifted and placed there with calculative thought as to how to best balance the load and stabilize the weight. The giant fortresses took years upon years to finalize, each piece sensibly thought out. 

    So much of our ancestors’ history from the motherland was taken from us, erased, and purposefully never recorded. However, these places and spaces remain. They are the mark of those who were denied any rights, but they did one better and left their legacy in something longstanding, stone-wood-iron. These spaces and places are our inheritance from our ancestors. Saving these places and safeguarding their stories is a way we can honor their legacy. We can remember them as we pass by, we can thank them for their gifts instead of taking them for granted. They can instill pride in all of us, of their amazing work and their resilience. 

    Preservation can become a way to heal. Through truthful interpretations, we can begin to counterbalance the unjust narratives that have been too loud and in the forefront for too long. Our cultural pride and identity rely on the ownership and caretaking of these places. It offers space for community to rise up and share in the narrative that they have been silenced. These spaces can shift – their energies, their uses, and also how we show up to utilize them. If we realize there’s a greater connection to these spaces, I think we would care for them better, with more respect and regard. I think also that they would get more use and more community support. 

    Overdevelopment and neglect often prey on some of these places. Old sugar mills and plantations turn into wedding venues, with zero regard for the history, story, or energy of the place. The lives and legacy of people completely erased. No mention or education to what actually occurred at these sites. On the other side of it, gentrification can occur in overdevelopment, pricing families out of generational housing, clearing historic neighborhoods into posh chain coffee shops with no ties to local heritage and culture. In some places, historians, activists, community members are joining together to reclaim these spaces from getting destroyed, gentrified, or usurped by imminent domain. Communities in turn are able to take ownership of their neighborhoods, their histories, and save these spaces with dignity, purpose, and pride.

     So many times, buildings are bought up by rich corporations, or people with no ties to place or community, they are then locked up till they are falling apart, then deemed unworthy an eyesore, they are either taken out by a hurricane, flooding, or bulldozed and replaced with something else with zero connection. We cannot allow these things to happen. We must retain ownership, caretaking, all of it. We are the ones with connection to these places. We are the ones whose ancestors built these places. To honor them we must do more, in advocating for stricter laws safeguarding ownership for local communities. 

    Owning the aftermath of slavery means retaining the authentic, genuine preservation of these places. It means not letting them be lost, commercialized, or gutted. It means preserving and restoring the spaces for future generations to learn their legacies and history, highlighting the spaces, learning the stories of these spaces, sharing their stories with others, and doing whatever is needed to keep them alive, in use, and appreciated.

    This work is for everybody, not just historians or preservationists. We all have a part to play. Everybody has power and the ability to create change. Visit them, support communities doing the work to preserve them, ask questions at historic sites, share stories, … all of these actions can have a greater ripple effect. When we take ownership of these places and spaces that our ancestors crafted, we are speaking truth back into existence, restoring our pride and connection, and putting our names back into history.