Unit 3 Blog + Keyword #2 Reflection

First and foremost, my roots are in the Caribbean. Having the opportunity to learn about Indigenous peoples foodways has been so incredibly meaningful to me. I find myself connecting my experiences, and the experiences of my family, with the themes and takeaways in this class. Obviously discourse about colonialism cannot be omitted when talking about the histories of Indigenous peoples anywhere and it certainly causes generational trauma in families living in or being from the Caribbean. That being said, learning how other cultures thrived and continue to thrive is so impactful. My family has lived in Puerto Rico for many generations. We have a long history with our own colonization and the violence inflicted by our ‘ally’ the United States. We are essentially at the disposable of political platforms that dehumanize our existence and belittle our worth. Generations of this rhetoric has created an extreme case of diasporic racialization for Puerto Ricans living off island.

My mother was the first person in my whole family to leave the island. She moved to NY on scholarship at 16 with no English or family in the US. She met my father and created her own community of PRs in Spanish Harlem. Racism towards Puerto Ricans has always been a part of the social dynamic in New York, especially in Manhattan. NY has always been the landing place for a lot of latinx communities looking for new beginnings. Unfortunately, these communities are the most marginalized people and are outcasted in society (Like my mother, who was racially discriminated against when applying for jobs after high school or when she applied for my birth certificate and they assumed there was not a father in the picture.)

We call this our diaspora as many are displaced from their homeland, seen as strangers in their new land and torn between their old traditions and new cultures.

How do we maintain our cultures in new homes that do not reflect how we see ourselves? Community.

When I watched the short Native Dish video about durudia tortillas, it got me thinking about the community my mother cultivated when she was in NY. Puerto Rican (and other latinx communities like Cubans, Dominicans, Haitians and Ecuadorians) found themselves living in the same neighbourhoods in NYC. The predominately Puerto Rican Spanish Harlem was home to my father’s family who took my mother in as their own. In this community she practiced and maintained parts of her culture with her new chosen family. A lot of that included making the foods her mother taught her when she was young like pasteles, with the other mothers in the community. By sharing her traditions with that of her founded community in NY, she was able to maintain a grasp on the roots of her homeland similar to how Isha celebrates her culture with her friends and family. My mother cooked every night of the week and always made sure I was in the kitchen with her listening to her memories in the kitchen with my abuela.

The most important connection I made this week was the culture and significance behind the ereba traditions and the Puerto Rican tradition of making pasteles. Pasteles have a long history in Puerto Rico and are made only on special occasions. The task of making pasteles falls on the women in the family as is the tradition similar to the gender roles in Garinagu culture. The process is similar to ereba but certainly not as intense in terms of labour. For the masa: cassava, yautia, plantain, green bananas, and calabaza are grated by hand using traditional tools. (Many families have modernized the making of pasteles by using food processors but not in the Figueroa family). Meat is filled in the masa, it is wrapped in a banana leaf and boiled, similar to making tamales. Making the masa is a rite of passage. As soon as girls are old enough (or basically have the finger dexterity to peel plantains) they are taught the family’s recipe from their generations of mothers. As stated in the reading, Garinagu people also consider ereba a rite of passage that creates a kinship system between women in a community. The collaborative efforts in making ereba is important because it symbolizes a unity amongst the Garinagu families. This brings us back to community…there is a fabric that binds most marginalized Indigenous communities in the Caribbean and it usually involves food. Food is nostalgia, it is tradition, it is connection between parent and child and it is community.

Lastly, I wanted to connect all my thoughts this week to one of the keywords from our group assignments: syncretism, which can be defined as the amalgamation of different cultures.

I have blended my own cultures, having been raised in the United States from Puerto Rican families and now living in Canada. My stepmother is 1^st generation Mexican and I have spent 90% of my life a part of her traditions and culture especially when I lived in California. While this is a bland example of how syncretic my culture is, it does highlight how travels in life can shape the traditions you pass on or uphold. In a more historic reference, and tying this to the readings, we read about the journey the Garinagu people took, while forcibly, from St. Vincent to Honduras and now spread across the globe. Amalgamation is a great word in the development of their culture and traditions because it was a great blending of a lot of journeys that dictates what knowledges are kept and traditions are continued over time.

A great site to visit for an example of how pasteles are made:

https://www.plenitudpr.org/blog-english/vegetarian-pasteles