When I moved from Puerto Rico to Miami, I never thought I’d spend so much time clarifying something as simple as my phone number. Miami is known for its iconic 305 area code, so I was surprised to find out that 786 shares the stage with it. Since I chose to keep my 787 Puerto Rican phone number after I moved, this made it especially interesting when giving others my contact information:

“I think you mean 786.”

“Did you say 786?”

“787? I’ve never heard of that.”

A trivial situation to most, I often can’t help but find this representative of the Puerto Rican experience. Although we are similar to a citizen born in the continental United States, there is something that makes us different. The more I had to clarify where I came from, the more I started questioning my identity. What makes someone an ‘American?’ Where do I fall into? Am I less Puerto Rican because I moved? Am I less American because I’m Puerto Rican?

In a way, Miami made answering these questions more complex. Being surrounded by students whose immigrant parents fought against all odds to make it to the United States, I found myself silencing my questions so as to not seem ungrateful for the opportunities I was born with. But as I sat in history classes and learned about the complex political relationship Puerto Rico and the U.S. share, my perception of what it means to be an American citizen and a Puerto Rican continuously shifted.

In an attempt to gain clarity on this topic, I turned to my relatives on the island who, out of instinct, use buzzwords like “colony” and “oppressed” to explain their feelings. For most of my life before I moved, this was the perspective I accepted. My family’s explanation of how they cannot vote in U.S. elections only fed into this ideology. How can so-called “citizens” be denied a right that is considered “inalienable” for most in the country? Are we equal in the eyes of the government? 

Yet having only recently moved to the continental United States, I am grateful that my journey entailed just a two-hour flight accompanied by my family. I acknowledge that most cannot share the same sentiment. When confronted with this fact, I face a crossroads: to what extent can I protest the conditions I grew up with? Is Puerto Rico truly a modern example of a colony? Or is that an umbrella term most used to emphasize the discrepancies between both places?

As I continue to live disconnected from my community, I have not settled on a definition of  “citizen” that I am content with. Rather than fit into an already-existing identity, I try to create my own, one in which being Puerto Rican encompasses all of the complexities and feelings that arise when asked why my number starts with 787, not 786. 

MARIA CESTERO is a first-year in Silliman College. Contact her at maria.cestero@yale.edu.