A New Destination for “La guagua aérea”: Exploring Orlando-Rican Identity through Luis Rafael Sánchez

Gabriel Barreneche, Jane Lombardi, Hector Ramos-Flores (Rollins College, Florida)

Puerto Rican author Luis Rafael Sánchez explored the duality, hybridity, and fluidity of U.S.-Puerto Rican identity through his short story “La guagua aérea.” In this short story, passengers on “The Flying Bus” would bring manifestations of Puerto Rican cultural identity with them in their carry-on luggage, and discuss feeling torn between economic opportunities afforded by life in New York and their sense of belonging and rootedness when living in Puerto Rico. This frequent travel between New York City (the traditional destination for Puerto Rican migrants) and the island on “The Flying Bus” has forged what is known as “Nuyorican” culture and identity.
However, in recent years “The Flying Bus” has adopted a new number one destination: Central Florida. The Orlando metropolitan area has now surpassed New York City as the primary locus of Puerto Rican migration on the U.S. mainland. The region now boasts the fourth largest Puerto Rican population on the mainland after New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Furthermore, the rise of the Puerto Rican community in Orlando has had numerous affects on the economy, politics, and educational landscape of the region and has led to the possible development of a new “Orlando-Rican” identity.
Proposal
This paper proposes to explore the rise of this new hybrid identity through the lens of Sánchez’s seminal work “La guagua aérea” in order to determine if there truly exists a unique “Orlando-Rican” identity separate from “Nuyorican” culture and the culture of Puerto Rico itself. This paper will examine three primary questions:
Does there exist an Orlando-Rican identity unique from the island and New York?
How do Puerto Ricans in Central Florida express and maintain their cultural heritage?
Has the migration of Puerto Ricans to Central Florida shifted the paradigm for U.S.-Puerto Rican identity as explained by Luis Rafael Sánchez?

Gabriel Barreneche - Rollins College, Florida

Dr. Gabriel Barreneche received his B.A. degree in Spanish and International Studies from Boston College and participated in that institution’s study abroad program at the Universidad de San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador. After completing his undergraduate degree, Dr. Barreneche moved to San Diego, California, and worked in a housing program for migrant farm workers through the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. He then returned to academia and completed his M.A. and Ph.D. in Hispanic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Dr. Barreneche’s academic interests include contemporary Caribbean and Latin American literature, U.S. Latino literature, as well as instructional technology.