Eyes Closed, Eyes Open

The Puerto Rico Winter Institute

¡Ojos cerrados!

On my fifth day in Puerto Rico as part of the 2024 Harvard Puerto Rico Winter Institute (HPRWI), my peers and I went to a workshop at a small but mighty theater collective called Agua, Sol y Sereno. There, we engaged in a thought-provoking group meditation and activity that forced us to temporarily relinquish the self and become one with our surroundings, including the people with whom we shared the space.

We were then asked to put on a creative performance that described our experience. My group chose to create a spoken word poem. We called it Ojos Cerrados, Ojos Abiertos, or “Eyes Closed, Eyes Open” in English. We wanted to capture the importance of liminality, or the transitional in-between state, that existed while our eyes were closed as to remind our audience that, once their eyes are open, they can and should hold onto any realizations and self-discoveries that arise from reflecting in their own liminal spaces.

With eyes closed, there is a certain unknown that opens the door for curiosity, imagination, reflection, and a shift in perception. This, perhaps, can lead to a change in perspective. Once you open your eyes, you can take this new perspective forth into the rest of your life as a richer, more knowledgeable person. And it can inform future action, inspire further learning, and augment personal development. Thus, Ojos Cerrados, Ojos Abiertos became the perfect metaphor for my overall Puerto Rico experience.

The two-week experience felt more like a blink. I flew in for the HPRWI program on January 2, 2024, and before I knew it, I was already flying out on the 17th. It felt surreal, even from the first moments. I remember that, just as the plane began its descent for landing, I found out about President Claudine Gay’s resignation from Harvard via the New York Times. A few moments later, the ocean outside my window changed colors to a lighter blue, waves started breaking over what I presumed were reefs, and I saw land! I peeled my eyes away from my phone, and in doing so left behind all of the Harvard drama and happenings from the continental United States. I turned my attention to the window and, with eyes wide-open, embraced the island of Puerto Rico that would become my home for the next two weeks.

The HPRWI winternship program is a joint collaboration between students from Harvard and from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) at Río Piedras. In our cohort, we had ten Harvard students from various disciplines, eight of whom were undergraduates. From the UPR side, we had ten graduate students pursuing Master’s in law or public administration. All twenty of us lived together in the same hotel for the duration of the program. The program consists of academic seminars taught in a classroom setting, site visits to relevant projects and events, and culture-focused workshops. All classes and activities were conducted in Spanish. This year’s HPRWI program focused on the effects of climate change on Puerto Rico’s agriculture and fishing industries, food security, and local environments. We approached these multifaceted issues from various perspectives, drawing on science, law and politics, history, sociocultural ideologies, economics, and philosophy. In other words, we used an interdisciplinary approach to address these interconnected issues.

Although the HPRWI winternship was primarily an academic program, most of the learning that I did came from outside of the classroom. After just a few days, my whole conception of Puerto Rico had already changed. Before visiting the island, I only knew it as an American territory that was a popular spring break destination. I thought of it as a tropical place where people spoke Spanish. That’s about the full extent of my knowledge pre-HPRWI. Immediately after arriving, I saw that it was so much more.

Puerto Rico is full of rich culture, a complicated history, and a unique way of life. It’s a small island of approximately 3,500 square miles, yet it has multiple climates and incredible biodiversity. It has a distinct, national identity that compares to that of any sovereign state.

What struck me first about Puerto Rico was that they use the metric system. As the taxi took me away from the airport, I thought to myself, “Isn’t this supposed to be American?” Then I realized that all of the street signs were in Spanish and only Spanish. I’ve been in international places before where signs were written in multiple languages. If I had guessed, I would have thought that signs in Puerto Rico would be written in English with Spanish translations underneath. Then I stepped outside and walked around for a bit. Within seconds, sweat started beading on my forehead from the 86° outside temperature and 90% relative humidity. I walked by stray cats and passed chickens on the sidewalk. I checked my watch and realized it was an hour behind since it was still in Eastern Standard Time; I previously hadn’t even know that Atlantic Standard Time was a timezone that existed. I had known I was going to the Caribbean, but I hadn’t processed just how far away I was going from the continental United States. I felt like I was in a foreign country. And essentially, I was.

After my initial shock and quick learning of the first day, I continued to absorb Puerto Rican culture as I experienced it. Some of this came from HPRWI-scheduled events such as our visit to a local church for Día de los Reyes or our workshop where we learned to dance in the tradition of Bomba; some of this came from unplanned events like trying carrucho (conch) and pitorro (homemade rum) from beachside food stands or singing karaoke at night in the hotel with my Boricua peers. We visited El Yunque rainforest at night to learn about the amazing species that live there. I visited El Yunque a few days later to float in the charcos (watering holes) and wade through the river. I talked to Uber drivers and ice cream store clerks about their life experiences and opinions. I bought things from street vendors and went in Plaza Las Américas—the largest mall in the Caribbean. I listened to people playing the bandurria (mandolin-like Spanish folk instrument) and sang with people playing the cuatro puertorriqueño (guitar-like instrument with 10 strings). I improved my Spanish-speaking and surfing skills. I greatly increased my consumption of plantains (from eating lots of mofongo and tostones) and jugo de parcha (passionfruit juice). I sang. I danced. I ate. I drank. I swam. I surfed. I talked. I listened. I worked. I relaxed. I learned about Puerto Rico’s unique challenges with regards to race, colorism, LGBTQ+ rights, environmental justice, food sovereignty, and so much more. Puerto Rico has been stained by colonialism, but a beautiful culture shines from beneath.

I would be remiss if I didn’t describe the many wonderful HPRWI outings, but in an interest of space and time, I will only list them without going into much detail. Our first site visit was to El Yunque National Forest, as mentioned above. There we saw different types of coquis (frogs endemic to Puerto Rico), snails, shrimp, tarantulas, and we even looked at a scorpion’s fluorescence under a blacklight! The next day, we went to the Plaza del Mercado Río Piedras, the largest indoor marketplace on the island. The evening before Día de los Reyes Magos, we went to a small chapel where we joined in on la promesa de los tres santos reyes (the promise of the three holy kings), singing the Aguinaldos (Puerto Rican prayer-songs) along with the other churchgoers. There were so many people sitting and standing that people spilled out the doors and sang along from outside the chapel. The aguinaldos were loud enough to be heard through closed windows and doors. We spent a day in Viejo San Juan and another day in Loíza. We did a bike tour through Río Piedras, the town where we were staying. We went to a fishing village in Cataño. We visited an agroecological family farm in Toa Alta called El Josco Bravo with an educational and sustainability-focused mission. We made a long trip across the island to Cabo Rojo where we visited a recao (culantro) farm, went to las Salinas (salt flats) and a lighthouse, and did a mindfulness activity atop a cliff at the southwesternmost point of Puerto Rico. Lastly, our farewell dinner was an outing to El Pretexto, a culinary farm lodge at the top of a mountain, where we learned how to make pasteles (traditional tamale-like food) from a professional chef.

Through this all, I learned and I experienced and I grew. I approached as much as I could with curiosity and an open mind. With eyes closed, I reflected. I reevaluated what I had thought about Puerto Rico. And by the end of my two week experience, my perspective had completely changed. This HPRWI winternship opened my eyes to so many things about Puerto Rico, colonialism, public health, Caribbean culture, and so much more. I struggle to verbalize what I plan to do with this new knowledge and cultural exposure, because what I gained from this experience is ineffable. But I know for sure that now, with eyes wide open, I will carry all of this with me in my continental U.S.-living, imperial system-using, English-speaking life.

¡Ojos abiertos!