My take on Identity

I am not your average Puerto Rican; I do not fit the expected mold. So it does not come as a surprise when people constantly ask me whether I'm from the United States or am an American. My identity as a Puerto Rican is distorted. "Home is where the heart is" I've heard this saying over and over. It was not until I truly began to reflect on my life and ideals that I realized what this meant.  To me home is my loved ones and good quality time with them. There’s nothing more important to me than my family. And we are all virtually Puerto Ricans.

Peter Roberts discussed the idea of home but I feel that home is whenever I am with my family. I do not have the strongest ties to a specific place in Puerto Rico having moved around so much since I was a little girl. Because of this, I do not feel so attached to the island like some people are. I am very sure that I will leave Puerto Rico to finish my degrees. I want to be a psychiatrist. I want to help people. I'm sure I can do that here and I want to but sometimes I'm not sure I can reach my full potential as a professional.

The author of Identity also says “Language is in part a universal human factor and in part a factor of place: human language manifests itself primarily in speech as distinct languages, each of which is geographically determined.” I agree with him and feel that unlike many Puerto Ricans, I feel more open and relatable with the rest of the world because I am fully bilingual in Spanish and English. In addition to this, I started learning French in high school and have a new found interesting in learning Dutch. I could get along with many other cultures knowing a few languages and being open-minded. Roberts also works with the idea of sameness, I found what he had to say about that very interesting. It is true that sense of sight is what we use to separate some from others and that people determine sameness based on where they are born. Despite this, we are much more alike in terms of identity than sameness. We can relate to others very well regardless of where they come from, etc. This can be linked to the question to Diversity-Universality which psychology tries to answer.

At the end of the day, I am Puerto Rican and always will be, that will not change. But at times I feel as if I'm not as Puerto Rican as I should be. I do not feel connected to the country as others do. I must say though, Puerto Rico offers plenty of things to be proud of. Identity is curious thing to me due to this. I cannot pin myself down to a specific place.