Havilah Darnieder

Second day of waking up to sunshine! Yes, that’s right. It’s our 10th day in beautiful Puerto Rico and we’ve only woken up to sunshine twice! Luckily, we have the day “off.” Furthermore, the overcast skies and intermittent rain has allowed us to engage in interesting things without the nagging feeling that we really should be sitting at la playa! Now, on to some important things… On Thursday, we had the privilege of meeting with Dr. Toro-Alfonso, a professor of psychology at the Universidad de Puerto Rico. The goal of the meeting was to learn about his research related to the immigration of homosexuals from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico. However, we spent little time talking (en Espanol, of course!) about this specific topic and more time discussing the broad topic of homosexuality in Puerto Rico.One of the most interesting points that Dr. Toro-Alfonso shared was that his research has found that in Puerto Rico, there is no direct relationship between self-identification of sexual orientation and sexual behavior. That is to say, people will identify as homosexual but engage in heterosexual behavior and identify as heterosexual but engage in homosexual behavior. He went on say that Latinos (living in Latin American countries, not in the US) have no need live congruently – they are comfortable self-identifying as one and behaving as the other. This issue of living congruently seems to be impacted, at least in part, by the lack of a clear and concrete “gay” identity and group affiliation in Puerto Rico. In the US, it is common that one’s sexual orientation dictates a whole set of life style choices, so that a homosexual person may be more likely to live in a particular neighborhood, socialize in particular bars, work in particular professions, etc… However, this does not seem to be the case in Puerto Rico. Dr. Toro-Alfonso referred to the US pattern as ghetto-ization, while stating that in Latin America the homosexual community is more integrated. This is an interesting distinction but it does not seem to be a hard and fast rule. As Dr. Torres pointed out later, it may be less common to see clearly identified communities (think Rainbow flags draped across the street welcoming you to “Boys Town”), there is still often a subculture to which homosexuals gravitate in order to find comfort and a sense of identity. I should also point out that Dr. Toro-Alfonso was clear that both the Latin American and US societies are, in general, homophobic, but the organization of homosexuals and heterosexuals tends to look differently. I think there is more to discuss in terms of the psychological implications of this research, but we’re off to Old San Juan now so I’ll be back to share more of my thoughts…