Today was our big day to show Maria, our professor, what we have learned so far in Puerto Rico. It has been an intense experience, challenging us to explore this island every day. We all have learned so much from being here and it was nice seeing each apartment’s presentation and how they perceived Puerto Rico and what it represents. Each of the apartment’s presentation reflected on different aspects of Puerto Rico that make this island unique. One of the girls’ apartment talked about the influence of slavery on the current Puerto Rican culture, the other girls’ apartment talked about sex and gender, race, social class, and religion and how these play a role in Puerto Rican culture. And my apartment talked about the different ecosystems of Puerto Rico and how everything is interconnected to one another.
Most people when they think about Puerto Rico, they just think of the oceans and the beaches and the people that look similar to Latinos. It’s only when you get to the island and live here that you will understand, it is not all beaches and oceans, but there are many different ecosystems, such as the rain and dry forest, caves, and many more. There are also many different ethnic backgrounds and one of the larger ethnicity on the island that might be surprising are the people from African descend. Our group captured all these information and created videos and presentation that hopes to break the stereotypes of Puerto Rico.