Tourist for a Day Presentation

     On the 17th of May I spoke to our English Literature Class about my Tourist for a Day activity. The main goal of the day was to try and act like a tourist in our own land so we could get a sense on how locals treat international tourists. I tried to "blend in with the crowd", but it didn't happen since I don't look like a tourist, so I decided to change my goal for the day. Instead of trying to blend in like a tourist, I decided that I was going to observe how workers from the tourist sector treated both local and international tourists according to how they acted. By the end of the day I learned how employees in both Isla Verde in Carolina and Old San Juan treated international tourist with more priority and respect than local tourist. To make matters worse, local tourist are treated negatively and biased against by workers, which upset me since I used to work in the tourist sector. For me, the Tourist for a Day activity unraveled the negative treatment of local tourist in sectors were most of the tourist were international.

     For our presentation we also had to draw a comic which showed our experiences in the day we acted as tourists. For my comic, I decided to do it very minimal and instead of drawing actual people I did shadows that seemed like people. My reason of doing the comic this way was to symbolize that my experience wasn't unique and that other people could've had the same incidents. The conversation isn't factual, but it shows what I observed when I went to a cocktail bar in the evening at Old San Juan. While I was enjoying my Aromatized Vesper Martini (quite delicious but strong drink), I saw how the bartender was willfully ignoring a local that was trying to be attended by him. When the bartender finally paid heed to the customer, you could see on his face that he felt the local was a nuisance. By the end of their conversation, you could see that the local wasn't going to return to the cocktail bar anytime soon.

     On class I told people my experience and it was compared to my other classmates. Some students had the experience where they were able to blend in as an international tourist and they were treated in a bad manner. One of the students, Alex, shared her experience on how she was ill-seen when people thought she wasn't a local, but an american tourist. She felt that she was being stared down in a negative light and the same time, Alex felt that the workers didn't truly want to help her. She told us that in her opinion, the reason that some locals don't feel comfortable helping american tourists is due to the political issues of Puerto Rico, mainly due to the colonial status that the island currently has. I feel that this is true since our political issues have been around since we were invaded and taken over by the United States since 1898, and our limited rights as US citizens affect all of us in the island. I hope that in the future our political status is resolved and that whatever the outcome, Puerto Ricans will maintain their pride will want to move forward in their land.