Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans have been in the news and all over the internet this week in some opposing ways. In fact, one could say that this year, the rise of one particular Puerto Rican woman, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, has put Ricans in the U.S. media’s eye. Despite being a U.S. colony since 1898 (with varying statuses), despite there being a huge Puerto Rican population here inside the continental U.S., many people, including other Latinos have dealt the Rican community a sort of neglect/ignorance, carrying age old stereotypes that are anything but benign.

First there was a report about Puerto Rican poverty which some media outlets expressed their surprise at. “How could this be?” everyone asks. “They” have been here for a long time. “They” are U.S. citizens (even if it is against “our” will). “They” speak English.

In New York City, 31.2 percent of Puerto Ricans live in poverty, compared with 27.8 percent of Latinos more broadly and 18.9 percent of the New York City population overall. Nationally, 22 percent of Puerto Ricans are in poverty, versus 19 percent of Latinos overall (from the American Community Survey via the Pew Hispanic Center).

Some of the reasons given include that the “successful” Ricans have left the urban areas and aren’t being counted. Others say decades of “bad luck” (this made me laugh outloud). I have never had the privilege of being an “outsider” pero I am not aware of Ricans ever being held up as the example to other Latinos of successful assimilation. Growing up there was a time I wanted to be anything BUT Rican since the combo of my my own parents’ assimilation attempts and messages I was getting from the white community told me that “Puerto Rican” was not a desirable state (pun intended). My “good” grammar, “good” grades, “good” hair always (and sometimes still do) the line, You don’t look/speak/smell like a Puerto Rican. They might as well have said “spic”, the way it was said to me as an adolescent, sending me the the chilling message that no matter what, that’s what I would be.

I think part of the confusion is that people, from the government to people in the street don’t know what to make of the Rican community. This includes other Latinos. Look at the varying responses to Justice Sonia Sotomayor? Was she an immigrant? The child of immigrants? Are Ricans who came and still some to the U.S. “mainland” immigrants or just simply moving? I personally was attacked for claiming the experience of my family who came to New York City in the 1950′s to work in the factories as an immigrant experience. No doubt this can be linked to the “Mexicanization” of immigration in the current debate. Once no one wanted to to be a “spic”, now no one wants to be a Mexican/immigrant even though when you come down to it, any Latino = Mexican = immigrant and when they attack one of us, they attack us all. What I have read in much of the coverage was the assumption that all Ricans speak English and that they/we do not face language discrimination. I am thinking specifically of many of my own family members who do not speak English despite being here for decades. I am also thinking of how my older daughter was placed in the English Language Learners program in public school because it was assumed that bilingual meant deficient, doing her education more harm than good.

I am reminded of some of the comments we received here around the series “Latino in America” and how Puerto Ricans were painted in opposition to other Latino immigrants. The reality is that Ricans aren’t viewed as the “newcomers” anymore, especially in places like NYC, which has a growing Dominican, Mexican and Ecuadoran population. These are painted as the faces of Latino USA and Ricans find themselves still in an in between status (again no pun intended) that borders on invisibility.