Blackouts

by Justin Torres

“Criminalized, stigmatized, pathologized. The student sees the lesson.” “Ha, nene, very good. Now understand that with the 1950s came a kind of Puerto Rican Craze. The advent of easy air travel changed everything about migration, especially to New York, and Puerto Ricans, increasingly visible, attracted that gaze, the cops, the journalists, the doctors. And what do you think they found? And no surprise this specific diagnosis emerges from military doctors, because other things were going on, in the army especially, with the Borinqueneers … and more broadly, with the long colonial relationship … But another lesson, as you say, for another day … The point is that every culture has codified ways of expressing overwhelming emotion, panic attacks, nervous breakdowns, ataques de nervios, these are all related to one another. Even in a breakdown, there are cultural codes, behaviors that render the breakdown legible, if not acceptable. You know, I’m sure, the history of the term hysteria?” “I do, Juan. Basically I do. But you said the syndrome is describing something. What then?” “Well, the hysterical reaction, the Hispanic panic, whatever you want to call it, to the increased Puerto Rican presence.” “White People Syndrome?” “Colonizer Syndrome. This is being projected onto Puerto Ricans themselves, and then they are attacked. Surely that’s one thing. And the other is that people living under enormous pressure do sometimes break down, don’t they?” “They do. I mean, we did.” “But t...