Hispanic Heritage Month

Leaving Puerto Rico, my family, and my friends was an incredibly painful experience. And every time I went back to “visit” it was equally painful to leave again. But we developed a sort of ritual where immediately after I arrived at home (after a 12 hour flight and a 2 hour drive to my hometown) we would sit in my room and I would immediately take out all of my clothes, and all of the gifts I brought for her and everyone else and we would go over them. We would sit and talk for hours, and she would always point out how she didn’t let anyone touch my things and my room was just as I left it. On this occasion, she was reminded of the song, which she then sang to me.

I don’t usually share personal stories, but today I was moved as I started planning intergenerational programming at Sunday Friends and I went down memory lane about my own experience and how my relationship with my grandmother shaped me. More than that I started to think about how my story is not unique.

Like many other Puerto Ricans (and Latinxs in general), I left my home to go to school and find a job and then couldn’t go back because there just weren't enough jobs and industry to support my profession in my home country. Today all of my friends I went to school with are now scattered all over the US in different states, and it doesn’t matter how much time passes I always miss what once was.

This experience is of course not unique to Latinos but to all immigrants that go in search of something better, in search of sustainability, in search of an opportunity to help your family weather challenges. We do this but there’s a cost. There’s guilt about leaving people behind, there’s longing for the space that is and feels like home that is so hard to recreate in a new place with strangers and different customs. There’s the missing people who understand you fully and the customs that are familiar to go to a place that seems to misunderstand you completely. There’s a lot of grappling with embracing an almost new identity that the bigger culture almost forces you into, because in the US we like to put people into boxes that help feed narratives of who people are and what they are like. It’s been hard to hold on to my own identity in the face of all those boxes.

And while I have no regrets in that I love the life I have today, I wanted to “speak out loud” what that was and is like, especially in light of the work I do today at Sunday Friends, where I support so many families that had to leave their countries and the people they loved to try and have a better life and know the pain of missing what will never be again.

So this post is to remind me of the long line of strong women I come from, to honor Ruth Estela González Dúque, my grandmother and the woman (other than mom) that shaped so much of who I am, and to honor the experience of all Latinos and immigrants in general who left behind important people and histories in search of a better future.

At Sunday Friends, we are helping families who are grappling with what I described, but really so much more. We provide that space that makes people feel like they still belong. If you’ve had a similar experience to mine and that of the families we serve at Sunday Friends I ask that you think about supporting Sunday Friends, by making a donation, and/or going to our pages and liking and sharing our content.

Thank you for your continued support,

Tatiana Tatiana Colón Rivera, MPA

Executive Director