There is a Barn in the American Dream

I was fourteen years old, when Luis Muñoz Marín became the Governor of Puerto Rico for a second time. Back then, we were a people trying to heal the scars of a colonial past; borincanos, as a race, were suffering from a deep identity crisis. First, we were Taínos with copper skin, traveling in canoas and eating cassava bread out of mud bowls. Then, we were a Spanish-conquered people who shared the drudge with black slaves and became mulatos; we drove bulls in yokes and walked miles up hills to eat cuchifritos from wooden dishes at abuela’s house. Almost a whole century later, with the American occupation, we became a widely mixed race that, contrary to what our History teachers taught at school, did not consist of Taíno, Spanish and Black, but of Taíno, mulato, black and gringo.

By the third Puerto Rican election, we were jíbaros eating sancocho with Spam out of ceramic plates, who had a new strand of Caucasian DNA that many people wouldn’t say “jelou tenkiu” for; those people were nationalists, who, like the Hebrews that we learned about in Bible School, would tear their clothes and hair, screaming: “We want freedom!” I imagine this is what Ramón Emeterio Betances and Segundo Ruiz Belvis did, when they failed at el Grito de Lares.

Then, in 1948, Muñoz Marín, came with the promise of a closer relationship with the United States. Nationalists cried: “Two-thousand and three hundred nautical miles is already close enough!” But now there was a new idea—a free-associated state. This kind of union gave us more autonomy, within the limitations of our status. But Muñoz Marín had to win the elections, first.

“I told you, Ramón, that the Bard was gonna make it worse!” one of Papi’s neighbors shouted over the chain link gate of his house. “First, it was Foraker; then, it was the Jones Act; now, it’s the ‘Commonwealth of Puerto Rico’!”

“And with the commonwealth comes you know what, Don Isaías: the petition for estadidad,” Ramón replied from his concrete porch. “Then, our independence goes por la cuneta, because that’s what every conqueror does: ruin countries. Napoleón ruined Spain, then Spain ruined the Antillas, then the Vikings came to ruin Spain, and when they couldn’t do it, the United States came and—” he made a whistling sound that was accompanied by a whooshing hand gesture (this type of expression is a Puerto Rican trademark that no cultural shift will ever take away). “They ruined us again.”

“When the next war comes, they’re gonna clean us out, but in English. Our name is going to be Puerto Broke!”

“Francisco Milán, kick the Bard out of La Fortaleza!” Ramón prayed aloud.

Our country in depression now warred two ideologies: independence Vs commonwealth. “This island is going to lose its spirit!” evangelical women cried in churches, their skirts long, their legs unshaven, their faith crumbling. However, on election day, colorful plastic pennants hung along the streets of San Juan Pueblo, and pleneros played by the side of el Capitolio. Papi stood on the hill nearby, waving the party’s red flag with the symbol of el jibarito, the Puerto Rican rural worker, and its motto: Pan, Tierra, Libertad; Bread, Country, Freedom. He looked proud and enthusiastic, as if he were shaking Muñoz Marín’s own hand.

But the anger of nationalists was also felt. “The Partido Popular Democrático is murder!” some screamed. This feeling was like a vein pumping patriotismo into the heart of many a Puerto Rican. “How are you waving the flag of a traitor?” they asked Papi, who was the old fashioned jibarito; he was a humble man with one cow and chickens who supported his family by toasting tobacco behind his wooden choza. He walked miles on foot to el pueblo, to sell it to the local cigarrero. “How can you vote red, Horacio?”

“For my daughters’ education; for your sister’s kids to get out of the barrio. The commonwealth is for the better!”

“That man is gonna take our kids out of the barrio then throw them in the frontline of a war that isn’t theirs to fight. Will you help them take another people’s land and culture and identity?” Tired of this argument, Papi answered: “Toñito, I don’t know what’s going to happen. But the flag of his party has a jibarito, so I will vote red.”

“The man won’t let us put our own flag on our own lawn! Horacio, you can have bread and country, but, without patriotismo, you cannot have the freedom part!”

I was never one for politics before. I didn’t get them. When all of this was happening, I thought it was about a barn.

I was too little to understand what Luis Muñoz Marín stood for or what a commonwealth was. Papi wasn’t smart enough to explain it… But he was creative. So, he showed me a picture of a red barn on a post card that he got on a trip to the city, and said: “Mira, mija: I want a red barn like this one. But I can’t have it unless the gringos give us commonwealth. That’s why I have to vote for Muñoz Marín.”

That was his explanation: he wanted a barn that was just like the gringo’s—big and red.

On November 4th, 1952, the Bard won the Puerto Rican election a second time, with a 64.9% of the vote. “That means that more than half of us wants a commonwealth,” he told me. Already old enough to know that, I humored him: “Maybe they wanted a red barn, too!”

Papi hugged me.

The day before, he had gone up to the plaza. The men were betting that the Bard wouldn’t win. Papi said, “I saw a shooting star when I went to milk the cow. That means an angel will give the election to Muñoz Marín, because I saw it.”

“And what does it mean if the cow saw it, too, Horacio?” Isaías asked. Everyone laughed. “Ramón, how much is that bet?” Papi asked. “Five dollars.”

“Okay,” he said, taking out a five from his shoe. “Five americanos, and if Muñoz Marín wins, you help me paint my barn red and drink a cafecito with me afterward.”

After the elections, Papi showed up at their house carrying a can of red paint and a smile. “Café?” When they’d finished, he called Mami to come see it. “What do you think?” She twisted her face eight ways. “It looks ugly!”

“What do you mean it looks ugly?” he showed her the post card, gesturing that it looked exactly like it. No one ever agreed with that, but, surely, no other barn on the island was like it!

Months later, we received a typed letter with gold lettering from Big American Company, announcing the opening of a mall across the street. Our plot of land was visible from the upcoming courtyard, and the sights of our choza—and, particularly, our barn—were ruining their plans. “The aesthetics will draw out sales,” they wrote. “We offer a fair price.”

This is what Papi told me to write to them:

Dear Sirs,

There’s no fair price for the soul, even if my little red barn is ugly to look at.

Att., D. Horacio Villegas

The company kept coming back, each time more aggressive. I suspected they wanted to force us out by means of harassment. “It is what they do,” one of Mami’s church friends, who had gone through the same thing, told her. That Sunday, we prayed to God that he would give us a miracle.

Then, one day…

“Horacioooo! Horacio, bendito Dios!”

He came to the door. “¿Qué pasa?” Then, he saw it: two men in a black, shiny car pulled up to our dusty driveway. A third one got out. We recognized him instantly. “Buenos días,” said the Governor.

Papi was beside himself. “¡Buenos días!”

“¿Don Horacio Villegas?”

“¡Sí, Señor Gobernador! The same!”

“Please, call me Don Luis.”

Papi scratched his head. I stopped feeding the chickens and smiled at him. It gave him confidence. “Okay, Don Luis! To what do we owe the honor?”

“Well, I heard that there was a man who had a red barn like the Americans at this address, and I had to come see it for myself.” Papi chuckled happily. “Really? ¡Come right this way, Don Luis! Walk carefully, I have a cow. You are lucky we have only one!”

“You also have a lovely daughter.”

“Lucía de los Ángeles, para servirle,” I said.

“There it is,” my father pointed at the lopsided, badly painted barn. The Bard’s reaction came late. “Well… This is a barn.”

“Yes.”

“And… it is red. But…” I knew what he would say. “It is not an American barn. I have seen them! They are…” he gestured a height above his. “Much larger than this one!” He chortled. Papi was crestfallen. The governor went on: “I’ll be honest, Don Horacio: I came because I want to help you. My office received a letter from Big American Company, about an offer for your house. I have been told that you do not want to sell. I fear these people are seeking a legal battle, but that takes time and money, which you don’t have.

“Horacio, I created a better situation for us, where those who own us became friends, and where our beloved jíbaro did not feel like he was still in the hands of the enemy.”

“That is why I voted red, but nobody understood!” He looked at the barn. “You think we should sell?”

“You can. Or you can stay and wait for Big American Company to blow, and blow, and blow on your house, until it comes down. But you voted for me because you wanted an American red barn; as a writer, I think there’s just no better allegory for the Commonwealth, because that’s what I’m doing: putting an American red barn in Puerto Rico. The free-state is now part of the American Dream. Horacio, I’m going to help you get the dream.”

Weeks later, a stranger showed up at our doorstep, with trucks. “My name is Quincy, I’m here for the barn renovations.” We could barely believe it. He had red planks and white paint.

Don Luis Muñoz Marín had come through.

Finished, the barn was larger and redder than anything I’d ever seen—more beautiful than the post card’s, because it was my father’s dream realized: a bit of two worlds in one big red miracle—with white trim!

Papi passed away, in 1977. I was a New York University Literature graduate, then, married to a good and humble man, like my father, but we lived in a house much nicer than the one he built for Mami and my sisters. Days after Papi's death, we received a letter from the Bard, a condolence for us to read aloud, “For the incredulous!” he wrote in the post date. It read:

Lucía,

I pray the Lord that you and your mother, sisters, and family find peace in the certainty that your father rests in Heaven. I saw him once more, after you and your sisters left for college; I just never forgot his passion or his American red barn! Although both he and the barn are now gone, I want you to know that it was not me but the faith of your family what saved your house.

Your father was a man who, in his own way, was able to bridge a divide. A red barn in Puerto Rico, aunque no sea lindo, is still a red barn. I fixed the one he had, but his faith was necessary; so are our efforts to succeed.

If the people don’t believe in us, we will fail—I know this as an absolute truth of politics, but, more importantly, as a truth of life. Your father, a simple jibarito, was, undoubtedly, not the failing type. God bless his journey home.

Att. D. LMM