Tourist for a Day

     I set out to experience one day as a tourist in Puerto Rico, the only place I have ever lived. If you read the essay I shared in my previous blog post, you will understand why feeling like an outsider is nothing new to me, and entering this tourist project I already had an idea of what to expect. Having been taught English as my first language by my mother, who is from the United States, I spent most of my life speaking English everywhere I went, leading many strangers to assume that I was not from here in the first place.

     I decided to go to the beach in Condado, because it is an area filled with many hotels, and the small beach I visited is directly behind a hotel. First, I got a coffee in the hotel's Starbucks, where, expectedly, they had no problem attending me in English. After swimming for a while in the beach, I decided to ask around about where I should eat. I asked various people for recommendations on where to get some good "local food". Of the answers I recieved, one in particular stuck out to me. One man I asked suggested to me a place where I could get the "best chuleta in town". I am vegetarian, and then informed him of that fact. His facial expression inmediately changed, from friendly and helpful to sceptic and judgemental. "How are you going to enjoy our cultural food if you do not eat a chuleta? or an alcapurria de jueyes?" He continued by pulling out some of the much used arguments I have heard so many times before, as to why humans aren't supposed to be vegetarian and other such things, and to avoid an argument I silently let him rant a bit, looked at my phone, muttered some excuse about the time, and went on my way. I asked some other person about where to go, this time adding in the "by the way, I'm vegetarian" before letting them answer, and they suggested a place in Old San Juan called Café Berlin, where they told me I could get a good vegetarian mofongo; I had actually never had mofongo before, because it is usually filled with meat or seafood, so I decided that was the best option.

     The waiter at the restaurant (as I had seen many times before when I was young, when I would go out to eat with my mother) seemed discreetly annoyed by having to attend a tourist, but covered it well enough with their best English, and by trying to be extra friendly. The discomfort I saw in the waiter was subtle enough that maybe a real tourist may not have even noticed it. Upon thinking about it, I wondered if I was just imagining it, or if I noticed this little difference in the waiters gaze and attitude because I myself have felt similar feelings towards ignorant visitors of my home island. I could not help but to keep pondering about if my suspicion was true, or if I was assuming things based on my own feelings about tourists, as I waited for my food. After eating (and leaving a good tip) I went home.

     There are two things that left me thinking a lot about this day. The first being that customer service workers who work in tourist areas must either be really fine with interacting with those kinds of people, or be really good at putting on customer service poker face. The other thing is that people (particularly ones who are not obligated to put up with you through their work) are very quick to defend the use of all things that are a part of their culture, and to judge you for not wanting and/or accepting them. The man acting personally concerned that I could not eat a chuleta is a good example, but in my youth I also encountered many people who became either utterly concerned or seemingly personally insulted by the fact that I had lived here my whole life, and could not comfortably speak Spanish. It has always been complicated to confront these types of people, but it is not hard for me to understand their perspective. Language and food are two vital elements that contribute to people's ethnic and cultural identities, and someone rejecting a part of one's identity is enough to make anyone a bit defensive.