Well, I'm back. Perhaps reluctantly... I was in Ecuador all this time and had a great time. It was impressive how many times I got questioned about the accent ("Where are you from, exactly?" or better yet, "How come you look like a complete gringa but you have this crazy accent? What's that about?"). I must admit though that the fruit is significantly better in Puerto Rico, even if it was good in Ecuador; I noticed a huge difference with papaya and mango especially.
I'm updating for a more somber reason, however. I was shocked to see Puerto Rico make the front page of the news the other day; I was even more shocked to find out why. As most people probably know, a 6-person plane coming from the Dominican Republic crashed into the ocean near Quebradillas. Of course as soon as the victims' names were revealed, showing (I believe) all of them to be Puerto Rican, the news disappeared. I'm not really sure this is a coincidence. Anyways, they've just decided to suspend the search today, since it has been so far fruitless. Many sympathies to the families of the victims for their losses.
February 10, 2009
A triumphant return and disheartening news
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5 comments:
Greetings, old friend. Where did you go in Ecuador? I am headed to Guayaquil next month to do an Emergency Medicine rotation!
Hi! Glad to see you're still around!
I was in Quito the whole time and really enjoyed it. Never made it to Guayaquil. I must say though that if you're going to be in Ecuador you must stop by Cuenca (especially if you're already in Guayaquil)--great city! You'll want to live there.
How long are you going to be there?
Actually the crash stayed in the news for quite some time - some of the passengers were very highly regarded members of the business community. I subscribe to Google's news feed with the search term being "Puerto Rico" and received updates for several days.
Nothing is surprising...
Another headline news was "an American killed in Puerto Rico by a Puertorican..." Funny, but I thought Puertoricans WERE Americans, huh? At the same time, I've never heard of "An American killed in Texas by another American", when referring to US born/white Americans.
Sadly enough, we the people and the media are the ones who make sure that people of "color" remain people of color and segregated exactly because of the language they use to spred the news. Like you say, they never refer to white people as white. It is only if they are hispanic, African-Amerinan or Asian, that they make the effort to describe the person 'better'in terms of color and segregation.
Puertoricans are AMERICAN CITIZENS and AMERICAN by nature since teh island is located in AMERICA!!!!
Anywhoo...it doesn't matter if you are fair skinned and blonde you are still of color if you are Puert Rican.
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