Digital Bodies at War: The Boricua Soldier in Social Networking Sites

Abstract

I must have been about ten years old when I was gathered along with the rest of my fourth-grade class in the middle of the patio to stand and stare at an enormous oak tree that was decorated with dozens of yellow ribbons hung from its irregular branches, their color already faded by the hot, Puerto Rican sun. Names were written on the ribbons in green glitter; it was the “Tree of Hope.” The names represented just a few of the men and women who had been sent to the Persian Gulf to serve in Operation Desert Storm. We prayed underneath this tree, which was permitted in 1991, or at least allowed at the Anselmo Villarubia Elementary School, where we were gathered in our hundreds from the first to the sixth grade. We prayed for the invisible soldiers on our side of the first war ever broadcast “live,” from Kuwait. I say “invisible” because in Puerto Rico, mainstream US media was barely transmitting any information on these soldiers. There were approximately 10,000 National Guard troops from Puerto Rico serving in the war,¹ but there were no “embedded” Puerto Rican TV reporters to tell us about them. Apart from the images, captured by the local television news, of their departure and of the return of the fortunate ones, the visibility of these military personnel was minimal.