One of the coolest things about Latin America is the cultural diversity. Every country in this part of the world has its own culture, and then, within the same country, every region has its own identity. This is especially true for Latin American countries in the Caribbean, be it islands like Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic, or mainland countries with Caribbean regions, like Panama, Colombia, and Venezuela, among others.
The thing about the Caribbean is that we have the same “basic” cultural elements you’ll find all over Latin America as a result of Spanish colonization, but we also have other elements that are unique and the rest of Latin America has no idea about. Some of these are due to our strong African heritage and others are simply a result of being literally isolated from the rest of Latin America and “evolving” differently. Either way, Latinos from the Caribbean are very proud of these aspects of our identity and will waste no time in telling you how awesome our home is.
Plantains are life
No matter where you go in the region, fried plantains are a staple of Caribbean cooking, and we love to eat them with almost every meal. The fact that they taste so different depending on whether they’re green or ripe, and that they’re just delicious either way makes them the perfect side for pretty much any meal you can think of. A plate of rice and beans with some meat and plantains? Yesss. A bowl of pasta with sweet plantains? Oh, yeah. Fried fish with a side of green plantains? Heaven.
Fried sweet plantains
We like to get creative with names
In other parts of Latin America, you’ll find traditional Spanish names like María, José, and Juan (pretty Biblical, I know), and we have those in the Caribbean too, but in the last couple of decades, parents have been getting pretty creative with baby names, which has led to a whole generation of people having very unique names that are both fun and also impossible to spell or pronounce correctly on the first try. Speaking from personal experience, it’s certainly annoying when nobody ever gets your name right, but it’s also nice to be able to “tell” someone’s from the Caribbean just from their name.
Cardi B isn’t the only Latina from the Caribbean with a unique name.
I guess we hate pronouncing the letter “s”
For some reason, one of the many quirks that make Caribbean Spanish different is that we usually “forget” to pronounce the “s” when it’s at the end of a syllable. For instance, “vamos” sounds like “vamo;” “buenos días” sounds like “bueno día;” and pretty much any word in the plural form sounds exactly like the singular because we don’t say the “s” at the end. People in other parts of Latin America love to make fun of us for this and try to imitate our accent, but 9 times out of 10, they fail miserably.
Pay attention to any of Bad Bunny’s songs and you’ll see what the Puerto Rican accent is like.
Fabulous dancing skills
Aside from a few unfortunate souls who were born in the Caribbean but have two left feet, most people in the region are pretty skilled when it comes to dancing. Dancing styles like salsa and bachata, which other people have to pay to learn in a class, we start learning from the time we can stand up, so we have years to perfect our moves. Some people might say it’s nothing more than a stereotype, but seriously, when you compare people from the Caribbean to people from other parts of Latin America, there’s a big, big difference in dancing skills.
“We live where you vacation.”
The Caribbean is known around the world for its natural beauty, especially the beaches. And, while most people have to save for months or even years to spend a few days in tropical paradise, for us, it’s something we see and enjoy every day, to the point that sometimes we even take it for granted. The beach is where we go when there’s nothing else to do, where everyone celebrates their birthday, where you go for a third date, and so on. We know it’s extremely beautiful, but it’s also, you know, where we live, and our everyday struggles are just as real as everywhere else in the world.
San Andrés, Colombia
Our families are every color of the rainbow
Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, the Caribbean received more African slaves than other parts of Latin America. This led to a stronger African heritage, which you can see in the food, music, and art, but also to a larger number of people of African descent. This is something you won’t find in countries like Argentina or Mexico. On top of that, over the centuries, people of European and African descent mixed more than in the US, for instance, so nowadays, most people are mixed-race to a degree and you will find all shades of white, brown, and black within the same family.
Colonial architecture in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico
The language barrier is real
Despite sharing all of these cultural aspects, we’re still pretty disconnected from each other. So, for instance, people in the Dominican Republic know very little about what’s going on in Colombia, and people in Puerto Rico know just as much about what’s going on in the DR. And then, to make matters worse, none of us know anything about the Anglophone and Francophone islands. With these islands, there’s a geographical and a linguistic barrier, so even though we’re right next to each other, it’s as though they were on a different planet.
These are only a handful of the many cultural aspects that make Latinos from the Caribbean different from other Latinos. They don’t make us any better or worse than anyone else, they just make us who we are.
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