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Does home represent the same thing to all of us, does it vary for some of us or does it just have its own meaning from person to person? On “Identity” by Peter Roberts, he mentions that “home embodies a psychological factor of attachment which probably issues from our primal instincts of territoriality”. Since we don’t really need to “mark our territories” in the time that we are living, with time we’ve changed what we define as home. It is more of an emotional bond created through experience of a place.  All of us humans have a place of birth, a nationality that is our political identity. 

To some people their place of birth doesn’t matter a lot, but I believe that a person should have a bond or connection with their country. Something that makes them have a sense of being where they belong. This may also be a place where you feel welcomed and at peace because many people travel and cross countries and oceans trying to get in other countries where there isn’t so much violence and hate or just for a better life for themselves and their families. Some military children, like a cousin of mine, grew up living in different countries where they didn’t connect culturally wise with no one. They may even feel like they have identity issues because they don’t know how they are supposed to act or be like.

In my opinion it doesn’t matter if you are constantly traveling to different a location globally to call a place “home” but I also believe that it may be difficult sometimes for children since those are stages where they are finding who they are. For these children, growing up where people don’t look like you, talk like you and have little to no cultural similarity may be hard.

I have always lived in Puerto Rico and only vacationed in Florida for some weeks and my place of birth and where I grew up have a really special place in my heart. I also think that in our head with smell we have an immediate sense of what is home for us and I specially noticed this last summer when I travelled to New York. I really couldn’t bare the smell on the streets and the subways, even so on Central Park I felt repulsed by its weird distinct smell, and upon arriving in Puerto Rico’s airport, I thought this is what home smells like to me. 

But Puerto Rico wouldn’t feel like home if it wasn’t for the people that surround me. Family plays a bigger role on the aspect of home, and by saying family I include those who aren’t family by blood, but I consider as part of me too. I’ve been to different places in

Puerto Rico that are far from the area where I grew up in or that I tend to visit since it’s still in the island I feel at home but not completely because I wouldn’t say I feel in place really. It can also be applied reverse, when I’ve traveled to Florida and felt at home because I’m surrounded by my “Boricua” family.

           I do believe that Peter Roberts, is correct about what he defines as identity and what is home in all aspects because for me home is being in Puerto Rico and with my family, friends; the people I love and even my everyday acquaintances. Home is where I feel the safest and at ease, where the smell, the sounds and the way that people around me act is the daily norm for me.   

Work Cited

Roberts, Peter. The Roots of Caribbean Identity: Language, Race, and Ecology. Cambridge:      

Cambridge University Press, 2008. (Print)