ON LINGUISTIC RELATIONSHIPS

If the past becomes the present, one is not able to reflect upon it and judge its qualities, benefits or hindrances, love and pain. The three friends left Puerto Rico for different reasons, but most of all, because we were young and wanted to experience the world beyond the island’s conservative and provincial life styles. We had college degrees and jobs as teachers in the island schools. We spoke English with all the limitations caused by the public school system’s education, but were very well educated in terms of other areas of study. We found jobs in the social services and educational sectors, and an apartment on 14th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, next to Casa Moneo, Aspira of New York, Macondo Book Store, the Guadalupe Church. La Taza de Oro, La Nacional Spanish Society, a Puerto Rican domino club and right on the border between Chelsea and the West Village. Chelsea had a large Puerto Rican and Spaniards’ population, and all kinds of shops serving their interests, providing a feeling of community that served as the bridge between one world and another. The West Village had the hippies, some left-over beatniks, Julius, the Bon Soir, and the one bar that later one would become an icon of liberation, The Stone Wall. It was perfect. As time went by, the past was no longer going to be seen as the present; including how we view ourselves and how we -in some many ways and values- related with both languages. 

(from the book in .pdf, My Bilingual New York, June 2019)