La Mudanza

Una llamada a casa

Written by Mia Meléndez-Ruiz

For the majority of my childhood, I questioned my mother's unease living outside Puerto Rico. 

I’d watch her fight back tears on our flights home at the end of the summer, and persistently try to persuade my father to take a sabbatical and move to Spain, where the culture was even a little bit more like home. Every winter, she’d admire the snowfall from the window beside the fireplace, wrapped under a thick blanket, telling us she loved the view but hated the way the cold made her feel. With every passing winter, she missed the beach more and more. Yet at the time, these patterns to me were nothing out of the ordinary; it was just who she was. A girl from Puerto Rico who missed home. 

If you had told that same 10-year-old girl that her family would leave not only Pennsylvania but the mainland United States and move back to Puerto Rico, she would’ve thought you were crazy. 

Growing up in the States, I never gave much thought to what it means to be Boricua outside the island. In West Chester, Pennsylvania, I was simply Mia. Mia, who went by Mia Melendez instead of Mia Meléndez-Ruiz, because most people didn't have hyphenated last names. Mia, who spoke Spanish mostly at home or in the school hallways with her mother between classes. And Mia, who, for most of her life, had only one other Latinx peer in her grade. 

It wasn't that I downplayed who I was; rather, there wasn't much room to express it outside home, summers in Puerto Rico, or Latinx Heritage Month at school. To me, I was obviously Puerto Rican, but the rhythms and norms around me shaped my day-to-day life. Over time, I began to notice small differences: when my friends would come over and ask why my family uses the oven as storage for pots and pans, why I couldn’t spend New Year’s Eve away from my family, or why, on January 5th, I gathered grass in a shoebox to place beneath the Christmas tree in anticipation of Los Tres Reyes Magos on the 6th. 

Fast forward to my sophomore year of college, when my mother received a job opportunity on the island. I can still picture the FaceTime call: I was sitting in my dorm room as she hesitated, unsure how to tell me. We had only just uprooted our lives in Pennsylvania to move to Maryland, and now she was facing the possibility of doing it all over again — except this time it meant leaving the mainland altogether. Yet after countless late-night phone calls, prayers, and conversations, my mom decided to listen to her heart and return home. 

Taking such a leap of faith, I wasn't sure how things would play out. Yet I can confidently say I’d do it a million times over in a heartbeat. Being the oldest sibling of three girls, it's been so interesting to watch the way my sisters —specifically my youngest sister (Emma, 12)— have adapted to life on the island. From once being hesitant to speak Spanish and having limited proficiency, to now being fluent and her default language, watching her growth has been such a privilege. Our days have become filled with family dinners at my grandparents’ house (who finally live close to us), weekend beach trips, and the things that fill our cup that we longed for when living thousands of miles away. 

Watching my sister get the childhood I sometimes wished for has evoked a mix of emotions in me. My heart fills with joy seeing her surrounded by our people, our language, our customs—watching her get to live the small moments my other sister and I never had. And yet, as the saying goes, we always want what we can’t have. I sometimes found myself wondering, Why couldn't I have that? Why couldn't I move to the island sooner?

But time has gifted me the ability to see the beauty within my own path, and how distance and experience can shape connection. Without my years in Pennsylvania and my eventual move to Puerto Rico, my identity would not be what it is today. For that, I will always be grateful to my parents for the decisions they made — and now, as an adult, for the decisions I continue to make to preserve and evolve my Puerto Rican identity. 

Así que, aunque me mudé hace unos años, mi corazón siempre se ha sentido en casa en mi isla pequeña. Y pues como dice Benito, “De aquí nadie me saca, de aquí yo no me muevo Dile que esta es mi casa, donde nació mi abuelo” y pues sí, soy de P fkn R.