The Latin Deli: An Ars Poetica

Though Judith Ortiz Cofer lived in the United States from the age of two through to her death at the age of sixty-two, she wrote extensively about her experience and identity as a Latina woman and writer. For Cofer, her Puerto Rican cultural identity was integral to her understanding of language, as she spoke Spanish from an early age and described Spanish as the language of her home. In an interview with Rafael Ocasio that appeared in the Kenyon Review (see: Further Resources), she explains that, for her, Spanish was never “replaced by English,” but that she “added English” to her modes of communication. Because she received an education in English, it became the language of her writer self, but she maintained an intimacy with the Spanish language throughout her life.

As a child, Cofer traveled frequently between Paterson, New Jersey and Hormigueros, Puerto Rico, spending months at a time with her mother and their relatives on the island whenever her father, who was in the Navy, had to travel to Europe for work. Though the frequent moves between countries and households were disruptive to Cofer’s childhood, her time in Puerto Rico enabled her Puerto Rican identity to develop and coalesce.

The theme of Catholicism, for example, that appears in much of Cofer’s work reflects the spiritual experience that is typical of many Puerto Ricans. At times, the theme of espiritismo, which is a spiritual belief system likened to the Afro-Caribbean santería, also appears, and this combination represents a kind of blending of beliefs that demonstrates how many Puerto Ricans feel that being Catholic and being espiritista is the same, despite the dogma that characterizes Catholicism and the escapism that characterizes espiritismo.