Isa Cruz

It’s that time of year again. Open Instagram and you’ll find yourself drowning (no, hurricanes can’t get us here, let’s say swimming) in a Caribbean sea of paradisiacal photos with varying degrees of aesthetic quality and colonial bullsh*t. Better known as, everyone and their mama’s Puerto Rican spring break trip. This two-week neocolonial romp is enough to leave my eyes twitching and blood boiling for hours.

To offer some visual typologies of Puerto Rico Spring Break Trips™ one may encounter, we have: (1) the classic azure waves, bikini and coconut-with-straw combo, (2) the fan-favorite sunburnt piña colada with The (White) Boyz and polarized sunglasses and (3) the digicam-mediated sunset and “artsy” photos of Viejo San Juan’s colorful streets.

Whatever picturesque postcard you find yourself in, there oughta be a Bad Bunny song soundtracking it, somewhere between the tonal registers of: (1) sh*tfaced nuisance tourist delightfully drunk on the beach (2) “oh my god Bad Bunny is soo hot have you seen that Calvin Klein ad campaign like, where’s *my* Puerto Rican boyfriend?” and (3) “Puerto Ricans are so oppressed but they’re, like, real Americans!”

“Whew, Isa, that was a lot,” and yeah, frankly, I’m disgusted by what I just wrote too; but also, I’m incensed. To be clear, not every Puerto Rico spring break trip is made equal. Also, I’m not exempt from this coloniality. In the place that has felt the most like home to me on this planet—what I consider to be my ancestral land—I, too, was an outsider and a tourist (a real mindf**k, trust me). And some of my rage absolutely does stem from the diasporic ache to return, and thus a sort of envious looking-on, as I see my classmates with no meaningful connections to Puerto Rico visit because it’s the closest and cheapest tropical escape, while I’m left yearning for what to me is home, grounding. I seek to repatriate my body to its territory, body being land and land being body. And from this spiritual ache, to witness highly commodified and privileged approaches to Puerto Rico does leave me beyond spiteful.

That said, I still have words. First, a recourse to Caribbeanist political philosopher Malcolm Ferdinand’s “A Decolonial Ecology,” which situates these tourist—read: colonial—dynamics well (shout out to my Rebel Ecologies class).

Linking the objectification of the island’s inhabitants to the commodification of the landscape as an abundant paradise, Ferdinand writes, “[the] inhabitants of these islands are reduced to servile-bodies carrying fish, rum and marijuana, or as the object-bodies of sexual fantasies. This invented paradise is made up of lapped-at skin-springs, arborescent swollen breasts, and generous phallic woods.”

Being mixed-race, I grew up squirming uncomfortably at comments about my “beautiful tan” and “caramel-colored skin” at summer’s end. The exoticizing objectification of racialized brown and Latino bodies is nothing new, but the recent (sexual) obsession with Bad Bunny presents an interesting case. Undeniably, his lyrics and stage presence embrace shameless sexuality (and don’t get me wrong, he is incredibly gorgeous), but at the same time, there exist undercurrents of fetishization in this seemingly benign celebrity crush: the same racial dynamics that make dating a “Latina baddie” in vogue.

Admittedly, I have a complex relationship with “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” (DTmF). At the time of the album’s release, I found myself enmeshed in New York’s Puerto Rican cultural life, and “NuevaYoL” was blasting from every self-respecting turntable. Never in my life had I felt so seen as a Puerto Rican in the diaspora; it seemed like suddenly, people actually cared about the centuries of colonial violence that continue to exploit the island and its residents under the guise of a benign, supposedly necessary paternalism (that “they need us” rhetoric).

And while I am immensely grateful for the elevation of Puerto Rican political struggle and cultural contributions in the wake of “DTmF,” I’ve found that too many of the album’s listeners all too happily cherry-pick the songs that soundtrack their endless perreo and ignore the tracks criticizing that very same oversight.

Nestled in the lush guitar of “TuRiSTA,” a melancholy ballad of heartbreak doubling as critique of neocolonialism, Bad Bunny muses, “In my life you were a tourist / you only saw the best parts of me / and not how I was suffering / you left without knowing the reason for my wounds / and it wasn’t your place to heal them, you came to have a good time / and we had a good time.”

Between the “hotel plantations” (returning to Ferdinand) and tourism-fueled gentrification, Puerto Ricans are priced out of their homes and suffer water and food shortages, realities that Benito testifies to here. Tourism is parasitic to the economic, social and cultural survival of Puerto Ricans who stay long past the amalgamated remnants of trashy rum-infused beachside benders.

But it doesn’t stop with vacation, no; tourism is also a gateway to a lower circle of colonial hell—the tax haven and its associated settlers. For years, mainland entrepreneurs have been engaging in major land grabs encouraged by U.S. legislation that exempts them from paying taxes. Just this past weekend, an estimated 50,000 Puerto Ricans—on an island of only three million, no less—took to the streets of San Juan to rally against the latest resort-plantation complex, “Esencia,” backed with $498 million in subsidies from the Puerto Rican government. Among the signs protesters held:

“PA FUERA LOS MILLONARIOS” (GET OUT, MILLIONAIRES)

“PUERTO RICO PARA LXS PUERTORRIQUEÑXS” (PUERTO RICO FOR PUERTO RICANS)

“SU LUJO = NUESTRA RUINA NO + ABUSO COLONIAL!” (YOUR LUXURY = OUR RUIN. NO MORE COLONIAL ABUSE)

We are witnessing in real time “LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii.”

And before they yank the mic from me, let me remind y’all that, “Puerto Rico is not ‘part of’ the United States. It is owned by the United States.”

Pardon my rage. Puerto Rico is not your playground.

Isa Cruz is a member of the Class of 2027.