Every day since I arrived in Iowa three years ago, I’ve been reminded that I am a Latina. While I’m at work, people read my name tag and ask me how my name is pronounced followed by the question, “Where are you from?” When I am talking in Spanish, I am asked if I am Mexican.

Some people straight up look at me and ask, “What are you — I mean where are you from, you know, what’s your ethnicity?” I smile, answer their question, sometimes have a short conversation with them, and that’s how I am reminded of where I come from.

With my experience with people in the United States, I have noticed how little knowledge they have of the growing number of Latinos here.

They are also unaware of that island called Puerto Rico located in the middle of the Caribbean where I was born and raised. I’ve been asked what highway I take when I travel to Puerto Rico or where in Mexico Puerto Rico is. I’ve heard, “Oh yeah, it’s like Hawaii, actually — isn’t it one of Hawaii’s islands?”

The most surprising situation was when one of my friends was asked for a green card after he showed an Ames police officer his drivers license and stated that it was from Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico has an interesting history — for the past 100 years it has been closely related to the United States.

When Columbus sailed the ocean blue on his second trip in 1493, he visited and saw Puerto Rico for the first time; an island inhabited by the Ta¡nos, the indigenous and original residents of the island, descendants of the Arawak tribe of Florida.

Puerto Rico was a colony of Spain from 1507 until 1898, after the Spanish American War, when the United States’ commercial interests and the Monroe Doctrine brought them to the Caribbean. In 1898 Puerto Rico and Guam were ceded to the United States and Cuba was granted independence.

Puerto Rico is part of the United States with a somewhat misunderstood status with the name of “Estado Libre Asociado” (literal translation: Liberated Associated State) translated to Commonwealth.

This status was set up by the Puerto Rico Constitution in 1952 after it was approved by the U.S. Congress. In actuality, Puerto Rico is far from the actual meaning of commonwealth, which is defined as, “A nation or state governed by the people; a republic.”

However, in the same dictionary, another definition appears telling us that “commonwealth [is] used to refer to a self-governing, autonomous political unit voluntarily associated with the United States, namely, Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands” (www.dictionary.com).

Before Puerto Rico became a commonwealth, all Puerto Ricans who had lived on the island since 1899 were granted U.S. citizenship through the Jones Act of 1917, making traveling to and from the island easy once a plane ticket has been purchased.

The ease of traveling in and out of the island led to very high migration rates to New York from the 1930s to the 1970s. According to the 2000 Census, there are approximately eight million Puerto Ricans between the island and the United States; the island alone has a population of 3.9 million.

Although Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, those residing on the island cannot vote for the president, do not pay federal taxes (don’t be fooled, local taxes are higher than in the states), can serve in the military, and the island has no voting representation in Congress.

With this short history lesson, I encourage you to seek more knowledge; there is a lot more about Puerto Rico that needs to be taught and learned in this country.

Puerto Ricans as well as other Latino groups that come to the United States are growing in numbers, adding to the diversity of this country, and to many of the accomplishments of this land.

Latinos have been underlooked and underestimated in many parts of this nation, and it’s time to see past the stereotypes.

There are 20 Latin-American countries, and although most share a common language and culture, each country is different.