On injuries or sickness: Put Vicks on it. If you've ever gone to bed with every ounce of your body smelling like Vicks, you know you have a Puerto Rican grandmother. If it hurts, if you feel sick, the only logical solution is to put Vicks Vapor Rub on it. Pills are bad, ice won't do anything, but Vicks will always get the job done.
On cooking: Puerto Rican grandmothers love to show you their famous Puerto Rican dishes, and if you're lucky enough they'll show you how to make it. They all know the recipes by heart and they come from generations ago and have never even been written down.
On eating: As any typical grandmother from any country, Puerto Rican grandmothers never think you've had enough food and they always believe that you're being malnourished by your parents and school and the food you eat will never be good enough as their own food... Even your other grandmother's food.
On dinner: Eat. Again. They never think you've had enough food. "No, really, have another plate."
More on dinner (as you can see, food is very important for Puerto Rican grandmothers): "Pizza is not dinner." If you had pizza for dinner, then please refer to number 3 and 4.
On MAKING alcohol: Shows you how to make Puerto Rican liquor. Puerto Ricans have their own moonshine and part of your rite of passage as someone growing up in Puerto Rico is that you finally get to know how your grandmother makes the family anís and pitorro. That same Christmas, you also get to learn how to make her famous coquito.
On drinking the alcohol: Puerto Rican grandmothers enjoy showing you how to enjoy liquor and how to distinguish the flavors of whisky. Puerto Rican grandmothers are expert drinkers. However, you'll never see them out of place or completely drunk and sloppy. They also enjoy teaching their granddaugters and grandsons that it is not a race; it is a marathon to enjoy.
Girls rule, boys drool. OK, maybe they didn’t say it exactly like that but… While our grandmothers come from a different era from ours where feminism was not really a thing, Puerto Rican grandmothers always teach their granddaughters and grandsons that women are to be treated with ultimate respect and to be showered with unconditional love and support. My grandmothers have always taught me to recognize that a man is not respecting me and have shown me how much better I deserve. Ever since I was little, my grandmother always told me, “You are the best human out there. That doesn’t mean that anyone is less than you… It just means that you are the best. You are beautiful and smart and capable of anything.”
Know how to take matters into your own hands. The best advice I have ever received came from both my Puerto Rican grandmothers: If something does not go accordingly with your plans, it is your job to fix it because no one will take care of yourself better than you. A story that my grandmother always tells me is that whenever she was bullied in school by one of the boys, she always bullied them back until they stopped because she would not tolerate to be disrespected. And it always worked for her.
