Bodegas, Baseball & Ballads: The Democratization of Puerto Rican Identity

Abstract

Evident within many diasporic communities is a group consciousness and organization that operates in non-institutional spaces outside the realms of government agencies. The case of Puerto Ricans is no different and beyond collective organization, islanders in the diaspora went further in redefining the very criteria of Puerto Rican identity. This paper focuses on the migrant communities located in New York and the ways in which informal activities and non-institutional venues served as community centres. Food traditions, sporting competitions, and poetic practices all acted as cultural bases. Such activities fostered a democratic and participatory formation of Puerto Rican identity and played a critical role in the socio- economic development of migrants. These spaces also provided room for the complex nuances of Puertoricanness that were overlooked or purposely excluded from dominant ideologies by both the American and Puerto Rican government. Looking at bodegas, athletic clubs, and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, we can observe the vital role of spaces outside the state’s control in facilitating an egalitarian and communal process of identity-making.