Puerto Rico
I live where many people vacation and have not stopped vacationing throughout the entirety of the pandemic. Puerto Rico has been open to U.S. tourists the entire time, because of its colonial status, and I have seen the tourism landscape transform. Old San Juan used to see an influx of cruise-goers who would come in for a few hours at a time and maybe ask me to take their picture in front of a taco joint sign, “because it says San Juan” and they didn’t feel like walking toward any monument of significance. The cruise-goers would stay in one spot, a spot I rarely went except for the post office, conveniently near the Starbucks. They weren’t really a bother, if one doesn’t think too much about the filth their ships pour into the ocean.
In the pandemic, though, the tourists started to come everywhere. Every day, I clean at least one cup of alcohol off of the balcony of our house. This has been happening for months. The tourists are everywhere, and they lay their bodies on our beautifully painted homes for photos. They FaceTime from our open balconies as though our houses are museum exhibits and not places where people are working, living. They hire photographers. Couples wear matching outfits. It’s all revolting behaviour, honestly. There is no attempt to blend in, to understand this place. It is just a backdrop for them.
When I was invited to go on a hotel stay as an influencer, I was both tickled by the idea of pretending to do that job (or do I do that job?) and of getting the hell away from these people whose garbage I have to clean up, whose photo shoots I have to step around. Instead, I would go be one of them, among them, in their natural resort habitat, and while doing so, I would drink and eat myself into a coma.
I can’t loosen up at a resort, though, and while usually my role at a hotel or restaurant where I wouldn’t typically go is to be a critic and observer, a job in which I am exceedingly comfortable, here it was just to… be. I shot video to make a reel to share on my Instagram. I should have sat down with the “mermaid” they carried in just for photos in the pool. I should have taken up public space for a proper outfit photo shoot. I should have done this new job of mine better, but everyone else was doing such a good performance of being an influencer: posing, wearing extravagant outfits of a kind that no one wore before Instagram, taking up too much space. I kept everything close. I drank too much, though. That is a resort activity of which I can partake.
The whole day was confusing, because when everyone wants to be an influencer, walks around like an influencer, disrupts my home as an influencer, it’s not really something I would like to be. But it was funny to try, and who can resist a hotel bed? I’ll do it again, and my performance will improve.
Alicia Kennedy is a writer with a weekly newsletter on food culture, media, and politics. She's also working on a book about ethical eating for Beacon Press.