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There were a lot of kids from Puerto Rico at my high school in Florida; people always assumed I was Puerto Rican. Even now in California, I get talked to on the street in Spanish constantly!

I'm a little bit of everything. Sometimes people think I'm not Puerto Rican, because my name doesn't sound Spanish.

You're not from Puerto Rico, so you should say Puerto Rico like all the other people from the place that you come from.

Puerto Rican culture is very lively; very lively people; very warm people; and the food is really great. We're all about cooking a lot of food and having family around, we're kind of loud. It's that sort of vibe and it's great.

It is quite understandable that Puerto Ricans seek to preserve a cultural sense of identity without separating politically from U.S. national sovereignty.

Once I tried to find myself as a musician and a composer, I went back and saw that there was something special about Puerto Rican music. I knew that before, but had never sat down and thought about it. The more I learned about it, the more it found its way into the music I was writing.

My grandfather came over from Puerto Rico and raised his kids speaking English so that it would be easier for them to assimilate.

My parents made it a point that, although I was born and raised in New York City, I needed to speak Spanish because they wanted me to be able to communicate with my elders when I went to Santo Domingo or when my family came to visit from Cuba.

I was actually born and raised in Puerto Rico. I moved to the States when I was 19. I was very impressed early on by being around people who spoke my language and ate the same food and listened to the same music, dressed the same. But then you look around and, you know, you're not in Puerto Rico.