Blog 7: Making Visible (Background, Part 1)

My skin is the color of “cosmic latte.” I found this out after browsing Wikipedia’s list of colors. On one hand, it’s sad to think that my outside reflects a universal nothingness. But perhaps I can take comfort knowing that I’m a visible connection to the cosmos. After all, every human has a teaspoon of the particles from the Big Bang inside our bodies. (I found this out when I went to the Natural History Museum in NYC last week.)

If I try to stay still long enough while sitting in the sun, my skin turns into an alarming shade of pink reminiscent of creamy tomato bisque. It’s for this reason that I constantly slather on sunscreen if I begin to think there’s a chance of sun exposure. That, and I am terribly afraid of following in the footsteps of so many fair-skinned comrades and developing skin cancer.

But all of this is beside the point. Last week during spring break I visited Puerto Rico. As a very fair skinned (and redheaded) continental American, I could almost physically feel that I was expected to act in specific ways, think of specific things and desire specific wants. I was a gringa on vacation.

I noticed the look of surprise on the faces of fellow bus travelers when I chose to take the 75-cent public transportation into the town center instead of a private taxi. When waiters asked for my orders in English, I would continue to respond in my own version of broken Spanish.

I ordered local dishes like Mofongo and Mallorca rolls, not cheeseburgers and cereal. Why would I travel to a (somewhat) foreign destination and be satisfied with the same experiences and food that I could find at home?

As the week went by, I wondered how the prompt in our class (see below) connected with my current experiences. The picture above was taken from a public ferry dock looking out towards a construction area near San Juan. I would never have accessed this public area if I had stuck to taxis and private tours. Yet it represents an authentic Puerto Rico to me: a run-of-the-mill scene set in a beautiful paradise. As I saw this image unfold, I realized that it visually portrayed the emotions I was trying to reflect upon. On one side of a man-made fence, local construction workers go about their quotidian activity. I, however, am left watching from the other side. I'll create a story about this in my next post. (See Blog 7: Making Visible (Story, Part 2))

Why is it intrusive for a visitor to ignore prescribed tourist routes? I was not loud or bothersome, but I felt as if I was expected to become so. It is a sad state of affairs when the mere existence of a polite, self-contained, cosmic-latte-skinned woman becomes visible by challenging the status quo.

Assignment: Find something that invites the public into a different route or routine, i.e., a pause in their typical everyday way of seeing and moving through space and time. Take a photo, sketch it, or make it visible in your blog post. Create a story that contextualizes the everyday routine way of knowing and how the something that you found (or placed/did) in that everyday environment disrupts, challenges, or changes public action and knowledge.