CCNY: A PUERTO RICAN “BENDITO” AND THE MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION PROFESSOR'S BIRTHDAY DINNER AT EIGHT PARTY

1970s: It was not a vision of the 1930s Hollywood movie. The Latina professor of multiculturalism and multilingualism celebrated her 50th birthday in a quaint  French restaurant, invited several faculty members -all white- but the two Puerto Ricans or the three African Americans in the department..A few weeks later, she gave a dinner party to honor another Latina professor and she invited the two Puerto Ricans, which they declined out of that which Puerto Ricans call “vergüenza ajena” or refusing to be used by tokens by Latinos who seem to have an opportunistic, kind of parasitical relationship with Puerto Ricans in NYC; often using them to climb the career ladder and then... “si te veo, no te conozco”. For some, in orden to “gain power” or to “feel equal”, a “member”of the perceived powerful group, as my neighbor in Santurce says: “Pues, 'dito, ya usted sabe”.