(This article is also available in Spanish → Click Here)
I grew up proud to call myself Spanish.
Proud to be Hispanic.
Proud to be Boricua.
Proud to be Puerto Rican.
And then one day, it hit me all at once:
Spanish doesn’t mean Indigenous.
Spanish means colonizer.
Spain isn’t my family’s homeland.
Spain is the second-to-last empire that ruled over my family’s homeland.
After Spain lost Puerto Rico in 1898, the island was transferred to the United States (under the Treaty of Paris), where it remains an unincorporated territory to this day — still governed by the States, still constrained, still not sovereign.
Yet somehow, Spanish rule was never framed to me as occupation.
Only as culture.
The Identity We Were Handed Wasn’t Ours
Puerto Rico did not begin with Spain.
It did not begin with Catholicism.
It did not begin with Spanish surnames, Spanish language, or Spanish bloodlines.
Those things arrived after the Spanish conquest.
The Taíno people were already here.
They already had their own language.
Spiritual systems.
Medicinal practices.
Agriculture.
Land stewardship.
Community governance.
Then came Spain — with swords in one hand and crosses in the other.
What followed was not “conversion.”
It was erasure through force, disease, enslavement, and compliance.
And while colonial records often speak of extinction, Taíno people did not vanish.
They were fragmented, absorbed, renamed, and silenced — but they persist in bloodlines, practices, foodways, and bodies.
Borikén Was the Name First
Before it was renamed San Juan Bautista, before it became Puerto Rico, this island was called Borikén — the Taíno name for the land itself. Borikén was not poetic branding. It was a living place, rooted in meaning, memory, and belonging. When Spain renamed the island, it wasn’t a neutral administrative choice; it was symbolic erasure. Renaming land is a classic colonial act. To rename a place is to declare ownership over it, to overwrite Indigenous presence with imperial authority.
Originally, Puerto Rico — “Rich Port” — referred only to the main harbor. Over time, the names were reversed: the island became Puerto Rico, and the capital became San Juan. This was not accidental. Colonization doesn’t begin with violence alone. It begins with renaming.
And yet the word Boricua survived. The people called themselves Borikua, Borincano, Borinqueño — people of Borikén. Every time we say it, we are speaking a name older than colonization, whether we were ever taught that or not.
Let’s Be Honest About Catholicism’s Role
Indigenous people were not gently introduced to Christianity.
They were required to perform devotion to survive.
If you could not convince your captors that you loved Christ,
that you honored the Church,
that you submitted to rulers “ordained by God” —
You were punished.
Enslaved.
Or killed.
That is not faith.
That is coercion.
Catholicism in the Caribbean was not merely spiritual — it was administrative.
It functioned as justification for land theft, labor extraction, and social control.
Yet generations later, it is framed as heritage —
not as the ideological system that helped rationalize genocide.
So… What Was I Actually Proud Of?
This is the question that broke me.
Was I proud of resilience?
Yes — and that part is real.
But was I unknowingly proud of:
- The language that replaced Indigenous tongues
- The Christian religion used to justify mass violence
- The surnames imposed after families were dismantled
- The whitening of the Taíno identity presented as “civilization”
No one taught us to separate survival from celebration.
We were taught to celebrate those who conquered us.
“Hispanic” Is Not a Neutral Word
“Hispanic” centers Spain.
Not the Caribbean.
Not Indigenous nations.
Not African lineages brought through enslavement.
It places the empire back at the center of the story, where everyone else is expected to assimilate by imitating the empire.
That framing matters.
Because when you center the colonizer,
you shrink the worlds that existed long before the colonizer arrived.
This Isn’t Self-Hatred. It’s Truth-Telling.
Questioning this doesn’t mean I hate being Puerto Rican.
It means I love the history of my family enough to want the truth.
It means honoring:
- What survived
- What was stolen
- What was forbidden from being passed down
- What still lives in our bodies even when names were erased
You can hold pride and grief at the same time.
We Deserve a Fuller Story
I’m okay not being Hispanic.
I’m okay not being Puerto Rican.
I’m okay not even needing Boricua as an identity to hold onto.
Because an identity is never the person,
and a label is never the people.
My family will always be from this island.
That history lives in my blood, my food, my music, my grief, and my joy.
But my life is shared with everyone across the globe.
If I use any title to describe myself, it’s human.
Knowing the history of a place — or a people — does not trap them inside it.
History informs us, but it does not define us.
No land owns consciousness, and no border contains belonging.
We are connected all the time, whether we acknowledge it or not.
And because of that, nationalism begins to look like a concept worth holding lightly — not something to turn into a rigid identity or a source of superiority.
Too often, these identities widen the gap instead of building bridges.
I don’t need to romanticize Spanish rule as a gift.
I don’t need to frame Catholic domination as destiny.
I don’t need to mistake colonization for culture.
Our ancestors didn’t disappear.
They were buried under language, religion, and compliance —
and later managed under a new English empire that inherited the land without undoing the harm.
Remembering them doesn’t require clinging to a flag or a label.
It requires honesty.
And honesty doesn’t divide us.
It brings us back into connection — with ourselves, with each other, and with the truth that no identity can ever contain what we actually are.
An Invitation to Go Deeper
If this realization feels unsettling, you’re not alone.
I’m still reeling from it myself.
Of course, we are where we are.
Of course we identify the way we do.
None of this conditioning was chosen — we absorbed it in childhood, long before we had the language or freedom to question it.
That’s why this can feel like the ground shifting beneath your feet.
If you want to explore this gently and honestly, the book Proof That You’re God is an invitation to dig deeper into the identities we’re holding onto — especially the ones we don’t even realize are shaping us. It’s not about rejecting culture or history, but about seeing clearly where identity ends and where shared humanity begins.
You can find it here:
👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DKCMR183/
You don’t need to arrive at a conclusion.
You don’t need to “drop” your identity overnight.
You only need curiosity.
One reflection to sit with:
If every label I use to describe myself were temporarily set aside — nationality, ethnicity, religion, culture — what remains right now, before I reach for another name?
There’s no right answer.
There doesn’t need to be.
Sometimes the most honest thing we can do is pause, feel the discomfort, and let the question breathe — knowing that none of us are only the Canadians, Americans, Puerto Ricans, or any other identities we were raised to be.
We’re something prior to all of that. A human being.
