The Puerto Rican Psyche

In this episode, we present a conversation between Daniel Gaztambide and I discussing the Puerto Rican Psyche using as a reference Frantz Fanon. We held this conversation at the Institute for Clinical Social Work in Chicago for the psychotherapy and psychoanalytic community as a way to bring to the forefront in US circles the invisible experience of how colonialism profoundly shapes the Puerto Rican experience of self and others. This conversation seems important given US and Puerto Rico policies driving mass migration of Puerto Ricans to the United States. We provided a historical context and how that context shapes ideas about ourselves as Puerto Rican people and as a nation. We also discussed Puerto Rican racial identity, how racial identity shapes our views about the relationship between Puerto Rico and the US, and the distinction in the ways US society treats White, Black, and Brown Puerto Ricans in the US.

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