WEBVTT

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I first visited Puerto Rico when
I was about 10 years old, right

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around the same time.

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And like a lot of young
kids, I experienced the world

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at that time primarily,
overwhelmingly,

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through my senses.

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Since I was a fat kid,
I experienced the world

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overwhelmingly through my mouth.

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So I was going
through Puerto Rico,

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eating and drinking my
way across the island.

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And along the way I learned
some surprising lessons.

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Lessons, not only
about the cuisine,

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but about the politics
of US domination

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of Puerto Rico, which is a
colony of the United States.

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You might call this my cultural
imperialism on vacation poem.

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It's called "Coca-Cola
and Coco Frio."

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"On his first visit
to Puerto Rico, island

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of family folklore, the fat boy
wandered from table to table

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with his mouth open.

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At every table, some
great-aunt would steer him

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with cool, spotted hands
to a glass of Coca-Cola.

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One even sang to him, in all
the English she could remember,

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a Coca-Cola jingle
from the '40s.

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He drank obediently, though
he was bored with this potion,

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familiar from candy
stores in Brooklyn.

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Then, at a roadside
stand off the beach,

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the fat boy opened his
mouth to coco frio--

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a coconut chilled, then
scalped by a machete,

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so that a straw could
inhale the clear milk.

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The boy tilted the green shell
overhead and drooled coconut

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milk down his chin.

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Suddenly, Puerto Rico was
not Coca-Cola or Brooklyn,

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and neither was he.

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For years afterward, the
boy marveled at an island

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where the people drank
Coca-Cola and sang jingles

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from World War II in a
language they did not

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speak, while so many
coconuts in the trees

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sagged heavy with milk,
swollen, and unsuckled."

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