My parents migrated from Puerto Rico to New York, where I was born. They crossed water, not an international border. I say this as a daughter of the diaspora, not as an islander, and I do not pretend those experiences are interchangeable. The island and diaspora have been shaped by the same colonial relationship but in very different ways, and I am very well aware of this.

Moreover, I want to be clear that Puerto Rican food is distinctly Puerto Rican. I am not arguing that it should be absorbed into a generic American identity. I am asking why, inside the United States, it is treated as though it arrived with foreigners.

Congress made Puerto Ricans statutory U.S. citizens in 1917. The Supreme Court had already described Puerto Rico as “foreign in a domestic sense,” under U.S. sovereignty, but not fully incorporated into the country. That contradiction followed Puerto Ricans to the mainland and still haunts us to this day.

Too often, unfamiliarity is mistaken for foreignness. What I believe someone really means is not, “This food is foreign.” It is, “I did not grow up with it, and I have mistaken my experience for someone else’s.”

Puerto Rican food does not become less Puerto Rican because U.S. citizens brought it to New York or anywhere else in the country, for that matter. Recognizing it within American life does not erase the island’s identity. It simply refuses the hypocrisy of invoking our citizenship when useful while treating our culture as foreign when we show up as ourselves.

And our right to show up as ourselves is the part I’m not willing to let go of.

Sources / further reading:
Puerto Rico in the American Century: A History Since 1898 by Dr. César J. Ayala and Dr. Rafael Bernabe
 
The Trials of the Oldest Colony in the World by José Trías Monge.
 
Puerto Rico: A National History by Dr. Jorell Meléndez-Badillo

Foreign in a Domestic Sense: Puerto Rico, American Expansion, and the Constitution by Christina Duffy Burnett and Burke Marshall, editors ...

As I continue recipe testing for my cookbook, I landed on Bacalao Guisado con Viandas this week. A dish that unexpectedly reminded me why this work has become so much bigger than simply documenting my mom’s traditional Puerto Rican recipes.

Yes, that’s still the goal, but what I’ve realized is how deeply my own perspective, project, and understanding of our food has expanded. The deeper I go, the more I recognize the wisdom built into the food I grew up eating. The intricate steps that a seemingly modest dish requires.

Particularly with this one, I took note of the soaking. The desalting. The gentle, precise simmer that kept the fish from falling apart.

None of it accidental. All of it intentional. And while I inherently knew this, it has become much more evident to me now.

You see, I’m not simply following written instructions as I test these recipes. Instead, I’m learning to meticulously gather what remains.

It has become a meditative process of testing, adjusting, and trying again. Sitting with my family, asking the questions, and listening for even the smallest details. Comparing what one person remembers with what another person does, then holding all of it against the way my own palate remembers it.

Which then leads me to the broader landscape, where I find myself asking: Where did these ingredients come from? Is there documentation of when this dish came to be? Do we know how it has evolved, or whether it has evolved at all?

What started as a way to recover my mom’s recipes after her passing has become a way to understand the overarching narrative around them. The rich history inside these dishes. The quiet intelligence of our food.

So today, I’m sharing this version as I continue the work.

A plate of Bacalao Guisado con Viandas, as a reminder that Puerto Rican cooking does not have to look elaborate to be worth paying attention to. ...