"God is Present": Poem Submitted to the 47th Annual Literary Contest

God is Present
I see you over the mountains

I see you in the serenity of the sea

I see you in the eyes of a child

I see you in the smile of a child

I see you in the birth of a child

I see you are present in my life

I heard you in the cry of a mother for her child

I heard you in the cry of a hungry baby

I heard you in the laughter of a child

I heard you in the woman in her everyday work

I heard you in the pleas of the humanity

I heard you and I know you are present in my life

I feel you in the air I breathe

I feel you in the peace of the world

I feel you in the scent of the flowers

I feel you in abstract miracles

I feel you even when nobody feels you

I feel your presence in my life 

You are the bread of life

You are the blood of life

You are light in the darkness

You are the guide and the strongest

You are the miracle of life

You are present in my life!

You are present in the World!

God's not Dead!

God's not Dead! God is Present just take a look!

"Forgive Me": Short Story Submitted to the 47th Annual Literary Contest

Song- Forgive Me / By. Maher Zain (Take a Look)


Forgive Me

            One day when my mother Yolanda was twelve years old she was spied on her father when he was doing secret activities. My grandfather Eloy had a woman in a room who was lying in a sofa and covered with a white sheet. He passed over the woman’s body with a white candle while conducting a rite, saying: “you have a devil work”. When my mother saw this woman’s face, she recognized that it was her Aunt Ramonita.

Ramonita was very sick but the doctors could not find any diseases in her body. They could not identify a clinical reason why Ramonita lost about 50 pounds and felt very weak. They said that: “she was healthy”.

            My grandfather Eloy told her that this “work” was made with a cow’s tongue that was left in a cemetery. When the tongue disappeared she would die. He said that she needed to find the tongue and break the spell. Working as medium, my grandfather explained where Ramonita could find the cow’s tongue. When she went to look for the tongue at Municipal Trujillo Alto’s Cemetery. She followed the exact the instructions that the spirit indicated and found the tongue buried near a tree closed to a dirty and unknown grave.

            She brought it to Eloy so that he could do a “velada” which is a special rite conducted through Madamma, who is the Eloy’s spiritual guide. He asks for Madamma’s help as a light spirit guide to communicate with the “sick spirit” that was harming Ramonita. A “sick spirit” is used to do “devil work”. When a “velada” ceremony begins Madamma and Eloy must be connected. You might wonder how a relationship between a medium and a spirit helping mode. Eloy did not select Madamma she instead selected him. A person never can select a spirit because it is the choice of to select and in this way is a gift. In the beginning of the ritual you never know when it will start, because the medium talks to the participants a natural way. Unexpectedly my mom saw, my grandfather close his eyes and he said; “God is here, God is here, Madammita is going through the castle”, suddenly Madamma was present. My grandfather’s voice changed, and sound like a woman. When the ceremony is over, the person who wants the favor has to pay the “derecho”, the fee for the spirit favor. In this case it was made with candle, because the Madamma “derecho” are candles and dimes. 

During the ceremony the bad spirit expressed through the medium Eloy that, he wanted Ramonita to forgive him but she said no. She had two choices: she can forgive the spirit and with this choice, she helped the spirit to go into the light or she cannot forgive the spirit, but with this choice she drowns the spirit into the darkness.  Ramonita asked the medium who made the spell. The medium told her that was Minerva the new wife of her ex-husband, Isidoro. Ramonita was bitter about the divorce because she and Isidoro were married for twenty years when he left her. He fell in love with Minerva who was a woman who worked in a brothel and was twenty years younger than him.

When the “devil work” was broken, Ramonita quickly recovered her health. Six years later Isidoro killed Minerva and her lover Rosa when he discovered their relationship. Then he killed himself. After when my mother told Ramonita that Isidoro had killed Minerva, she said;  “I am happy about that because they paid for the danger and pain that they caused me”. After, Ramonita did not learn anything about how to live a good life. She became irresponsible and acted crazy by having multiple sex partners. Nine years later, she got HIV and died. She did not learn that the necessary lesson; that forgiveness is the key that opens the door to purify the soul.

"A Puerto Rican Identity": Essay Submitted to the 47th Annual Literary Contest

National Anthem of Puerto Rico- Instrumental (Take a Look)

A Puerto Rican Identity

As a general perception, identity is what really defines a person.  To be or not to be is the main idea.  Peter Roberts in his essay, The Roots of Caribbean Identity: Language, Race and Ecology explains:  “the identity of any human can be specified by using, singly or in combination, many different universal criteria, e.g. sex, age, religion”(1).  Identity is delimited by the human's conception and expression of their individuality or group affiliations, such as national identity and cultural identity (Rummens, 42).  In the modern and political world people are identified with a country.  This forms a national identity, which is established by place of residence or place of birth (Roberts, 1).  The main question I ask is if Puerto Ricans have an identity. I will discuss some of the factors that directly affect the Puerto Rico’s identity and different reasons to believe that Puerto Ricans really have a separate and complete identity.

An important factor is that Puerto Rican identity is represented as a collective and national identity. National identity is defined as social, cultural and geographical condition that has a connection with a political environment and is linked with a country. Nationality is an important part of the national identity.  In this case, I will refer to the national identity as the Puerto Rican identity, specifically how it was created and what are the origins of the Puerto Rican identity.  When tourists come to Puerto Rico, specifically on cruise ships, they mostly just visit San Juan, Puerto Rico’s capital.  Tourists think that to visit Puerto Rico is just to visit “El Morro” and eat some food in the restaurant “Raíces” in San Juan, but they do not know the real history behind the walls, which have for years witnessed how the Puerto Rican identity emerged.  This idea of tourism is not just a judgmental notion.  Jamaica Kincaid also, in her essay A Small Place, said about tourists: “A tourist is an ugly human being” (14).  This idea makes me think that tourists just visit places to escape from their reality, instead of to know the history of the places and to understand the national identity of the people who live in these places.

Different events related to philosophical ideas, social and economic aspects and political movements have given origin to the Puerto Rican identity.  Since the era of the “Taínos” (Puerto Rican Indians) the Puerto Rican identity began to form.  Then, Christopher Columbus discovered Puerto Rico on November 19, 1493.  On July 25, 1898, during the Spanish-American War, the United States of America (USA) took Puerto Rico as a colony and they continue this relationship in the present time (Dolores-Luque; 184).  These events have lacerated the Puerto Rican identity, because they affected the Puerto Ricans’ national identity in the international perspective.  Why do I allude to the international perspective?  Actually, Puerto Rico’s political status is undefined. When people ask if Puerto Rico is a country or a state, Puerto Ricans answer: “We have a commonwealth status”, but the reality is that we are a “colony”.  This situation was defined by the Foraker Law, which transformed Puerto Rico into an unincorporated territory. The Foraker Law positioned Puerto Rico in a situation in which internationally Puerto Rico is part of the USA, but domestically (inside the USA) Puerto Ricans are foreigners.  The best example to describe that Puerto Ricans are foreigners in the USA is the summer internships in which Puerto Ricans are considered to be minorities (similar to international students), despite the Puerto Rican relationship with the USA.  The Foraker Law also imposed the Cabotage Law on Puerto Rico.  These laws limit the free trade between Puerto Rico and other countries (Dolores-Luque; 192).  In general, Puerto Rico always has had a political identity problem, because Puerto Rico’s autonomy is very limited.

Despite all the facts that have lacerated the Puerto Rican’s identity, Puerto Ricans have a cultural identity because of their customs:  food, music, clothing and sports.  I remember when I was flying to New York, in the summer of 2012 and a woman in the airplane asked me: “Where are you from? And without waiting for my reply she made a joke. Oh, you are from “La Isla Verde””.  I realized this was a derogatory comment and feeling proud of my Island, I said: “Not really, I am from the Island that is small in size but bigger than any other part of the world for its great talents.  I am from the Island where Miss Universe 2001 (Denise Quiñones) won and the Island that had the champion boxer on May 2001, Felix “Tito” Trinidad, who defeated William Joppy in Madison Square Gardens New York in a knock out”.  It was in this moment that I decided, as a Puerto Rican, I had an identity.  Borinquen is the true Puerto Rican identity. Another incident I also remember when I went to Canada in the summer of 2013. When I was crossing the USA border with my boyfriend, who is from Guatemala, the border guard asked us:  “What are you doing in Canada and how did you meet each other?”   I answered him: “We are just visiting Canada and we met during student travel. We are going back to Harvard Medical School to begin our studies. ”  The border guard seemed surprised. Then he said that everything was fine and good luck. Without saying it, he communicated his prejudicial attitude.  He never imagined that “Hispanics” like us would go to a prestigious university such as Harvard.

Definitely, Puerto Rico’s political identity is still undefined, but that is not all that defines Puerto Ricans. Puerto Rican identity is defined by our history, culture and, the most important thing, our beautiful people.  Though Puerto Rico is not a free country, Puerto Rican identity is something that always will be present among Puerto Ricans because it represents and defines who we are.  As in his poem, Invictus, William Ernest Henley said: “It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul” (234).

                   Video of the Poem Invictus - (Take a Look)

Works Cited

Dolores-Luque, María, et al. Puerto Rico en el Tiempo. Un Enfoque Contemporáneo. Cataño, Puerto Rico. Ediciones SM. 2011. 168-202.

Kincaid, Jamaica. A Small Place. A Plume Book. 1989. Retrieved on January 29, 2014. Web. <http://www.neiu.edu/~circill/lopez/mcs225/weekxismall.pdf >.

Roberts, Peter. The Roots of Caribbean Identity: Language, Race and Ecology. New York: Cambridge U.P. 2008. 1-5.

Rummens, Joanna. Personal identity and social structure in Sint Maarten/Saint Martin : a plural identities approach. Toronto, Canada: York University. 1993. 42-45.

Ernest-Henley, William & Untermeyer, Louis (ed). Invictus. Modern British Poetry. New York, Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920. Published January 1999 by Bartleby.com. Retrieved on February 28, 2014. Web. <http://www.bartleby.com/103/7.html>

The Purdue OWL. Purdue U Writing Lab, 2010. Retrieved on February 28, 2014. Web. <https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/08/>.