BLOODRED LIGHTS SPREAD ACROSS THE STREET AT the end of Sea Beach Drive on Puerto Rico’s west coast. When I park my car and step out, thick humidity and the whoosh of waves greet me. It’s late at night, so I can’t see it, but the water is undeniably there.
I’m standing in Rincón, called the surf capital of the Caribbean, and those red lights help prevent nesting sea turtles from wandering off the sand. Even though I was born in Puerto Rico, this town, above where the Caribbean and the Atlantic meet, is new to me. My family is from metro San Juan, the north-coast capital city. When we would visit my grandmother on the island, we were often eastbound, seeing the usual sites—El Morro citadel; El Yunque rainforest; the kioskos, or food stalls, in beachy Luquillo by day, and the nearby bioluminescent bay by night.
Like many folks in the diaspora, I have a complicated relationship with the island. I feel fundamentally connected, but also detached. I didn’t grow up here (I spent most of my childhood in Atlanta), so I struggle with claiming I’m here, but something in my bones tells me I’m home. I didn’t visit the island at all in my twenties when my grandmother had developed Alzheimer’s and moved stateside. She was very special to me, in no small part because she was my docent to Puerto Rican cuisine, and to this day her teachings inspire my understanding of flavor. But years after coast, driving along cliffs as the sea opened up in front of me. I was awestruck and felt I’d discovered a whole other island within my island, one that was more relaxed, less crowded, more lush, unspoiled. I’ve traveled west on every visit since.
