The Joy of Being Nueva Latina

The Latina's Bible
by Sandra Guzmán

Do you speak in English but dream in Spanglish? Do you crave homemade tortillas but end up buying them ready-made at the supermarket? Is your papi chulo a blue-eyed gringo, or do you have a Latin lover whose español is better than yours? Listen up, hermanas: Today's Latina is a bicultural mamita who lives and loves in two worlds — and one of them is brimming with rich ethnic traditions and strong ties to home and familia. If you feel torn between these two worlds, and if you've been looking for un libro that will help you bridge the gap between the old-world ways of your mamá, tías, and abuelitas and the world of opportunities in the twenty-first century, then The Latina's Bible is the book para tí! With warmth, humor, and I've-been-there wisdom, author Sandra Guzmán tackles the real-world complicaciones that many Latinas face today, including:

• The Latina sexual mystique — plus the truth about interracial dating and marriage
• Finding professional success by networking Latina-style
• Surviving your mother — without going loca!
• Taking care of yourself, body and soul

The Latina's Bible is a rich mix of real-life solutions, down-home dichos, inspiration, and support — the bedside companion no mujer should be without!

For most of our lives the lesson is to love ourselves even more deeply, especially because we are the survivors of colonization . . . that's our fight against injustice!

— Patrisia Gonzáles, Chicana-Kikapu writer

I am a proud Latina. I am a proud American. I am not exotic. I am two cultures in one fabulous, curvaceous, café-con-leche body. I own English. I dream in Spanish. On most days, I'm delighted to explain this marvelous heritage to the curious and clueless who ask questions like, "So Sandra, what are you?" Other days I just repeat to myself, "I am what I am."

But I want to tell you what I am, because I think once I do, you'll understand why I've written this book — para ti, mujer!

As a Puerto Rico-born and U.S.-raised woman, I am layers of history that speak of beaches and snowflakes, rain forests and tenements, Spanish and English, spicy food and fast food, hip-hop and congas, apple pie and flan. I have two homes — an America that sometimes refuses to accept me as a legitimate daughter, and a Puerto Rico that sometimes denies me when my Spanish fails me.

For as long as I can remember, I always yearned to belong neatly to just one of them. But greater forces were at play. Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory with unresolved political and identity issues that date back more than a century. It's neither a state nor a sovereign nation, but an in-between political entity called a "commonwealth" — a euphemism for "colony." Puerto Rico is still trying to answer profound political questions about who it is as a nation — as a people and as a collection of individuals. We are simultaneously part of the United States and a member nation of the twenty countries that make up Spanish-speaking Latin America. When I think of Puerto Rico's political dilemma, I am reminded of an old Mexican dicho: "Poor Mexico — so close to the U.S., so far from God."

I am a Latina who was born into a borderland and raised in a cultural middle. When I was a little girl, my family — my mom, two sisters, and two brothers — made its way north. My mother was a seamstress, but when the factory where she made sneakers (Pro-Keds) closed down, she packed up suitcases full of tropical clothes and we left El Tuque, the small fishing village we called home. We moved to the immigrant working-class town of Jersey City, New Jersey, where some of our other relatives had settled years earlier. Some say that the best thing Jersey City has to offer is a view of Manhattan, but it was there that I became a Jerseyrican — a combination of American and boricua from New Jersey.

There was no such thing as bilingual education in my public school, or even English as a Second Language; it was strictly sink or swim. (Ironically, the school was named in honor of Roberto Clemente, the Puerto Rican baseball legend. Go figure!) But as the daughter of strong and clever people, I learned English quickly. Unfortunately, I also learned to forget Spanish — though I picked up a lot of Spanglish. Lunch, for example, became lonche; roof, rufo; the building's superintendent, el super.

Though I was quickly absorbing mainstream americana ways, everything in my Jersey home spoke fluent Latino. The food, the music, the language, la familia's deep religious fervor, las fiestas, las novelas, the traditions. Even the house decor screamed Latino — from the plastic-covered sofas and the pictures of virgencitas to the thousands of ceramic figurines of elephants, angels, and coquís, Puerto Rico's thumb-size singing frogs.

My barrio friends were fellow boricuas, Dominicans, Cubans, Ecuadorians, and other South and Central Americans, but also Irish, Polish, Asians, and Italians. It wasn't so much a melting pot as a big mixed ensalada.

My Latino friends and I had different accents when we spoke our broken Spanish, but we shared the same basic cultural Latino customs: family is blood, have faith in Dios and church, all viejitos are respected, girls are of the home, boys not. English was like a glue for us; it held the different Latin American banderas together. I remember a lot of warmth and cariño in this very diverse Latino immigrant community.

Before long, I became the family translator. And just as quickly as I was learning to own the English language, I was embracing American behaviors — the attitude, the fashions, the music, and, ay, Dios mio, the independent and "unbecoming" gringita habit of always expressing my opinion! Growing up, I found it a challenging task to explain myself to Mami. It didn't help that she never really learned English and I was quickly losing my Spanish; she never accepted what she called this americana in me. She wanted me to be her idea of a good Puerto Rican girl forever.

But I was becoming something else: a new breed, a new woman, a confluence of Pan-Latino consciousness and American influences: yo me convertí en una nueva latina.

Identifying as Latina was a politically conscious move on my part. I understood "Hispanic" to be a term made up by the U.S. government, so I didn't want anyone labeling me that way. On the other hand, the friendlier "puertorriqueña" and "Jerseyrican" described only parts of me, not the whole.

Copyright © 2002 by Sandra Guzman. Excerpted by permission of Three Rivers Press, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

About the Author

Sandra Guzmán, an Emmy Award-winning television journalist, is the former editor-in-chief of Latina magazine. A popular speaker, Sandra also worked as a producer at Telemundo and at the Fox television network.