Why I want to go back?

Yesterday this question was in my mind for a long time after a friend of mine looked at me with weird eyes when I told her I wanted to go back to Puerto Rico in the future. Her friend asked me "Do you want to go back because you feel mistreated by "Americans"?". I said, "Not necesarily, but because this is not my place. I come from Puerto Rico. I feel out of place. My whole family and friends are in Puerto Rico, so I want to be there at some point of my life". There was a silence. The topic changed but I still kept thinking about that question.

Today I woke up and I thought about Puerto Rico and asked myself that questions again like if I wanted to develope a more convincing explanation of why I wanted to go back. I was trying to understand my friend who is having a difficult time in the US by not having the proper documents to remain in this country and how she wished to be like me, an immigrant US citizen, but that did not changed my desire of going back to Puerto Rico. She said that maybe I wanted to go back becasue I could go back and forward to Puerto Rico and that if I changed my mind, I always could come back to the United States. And again, I thought, that did not influence my desire of being back in Puerto Rico. I told her that I did not want to go back to Puerto Rico becasue it were the best place to live, but because I felt the US was not my place and that this would be just a transitory (but not less important) experience in my life.

After thinking about this in bed, I closed my eyes and asked myself again why I wanted to go back to Puerto Rico. I imagined I was at the San Juan airport waiting for a shuttle to go to a car rent office as I usually do whenever I go to Puerto Rico. I closed my eyes and smelled the air. It was so familiar, so me, so Puertorrican soil, so warm, so humid. I could feel it. I was at home with my suitcase in hands. Suddenly, I woke up at my mother in law's house in a little bedroom she always prepare for us. It was early in the morning and I could hear the chickens my husband love and the horses making noises. I smiled. I stood up and felt the floor in bare foot, cold and refreshing for my feet. I looked around and I felt different and happy. My eyes shred tears, many tears I could not stop from coming out my cheek that I found that question so rude to myself. I wondered why I have to answer that question. I wondered if someone has asked to any "American" when they are oversees "Why you want to go back to the United States?". How they would feel if someone asked them something like that? I just want to go there becasue is the place I love, where I grew up, is part of me and I felt that something is missing being so far. I feel something of me is missing when I don't see the green mountains when I open the door of my house or when I look up in the sky and I don't see it blue.

Is this so difficult to understand? I know our economy is very unsteable. There are many things I do not like about the place I was born as many "Americans" might feel about the United States. I have many critics to my country, but still is my place and I feel it would be very unfair just to not give back to my country what it gave me at some point of my life, my education, my unique perspective of life, my personality and my life.