Hello,
I'm Romina and this is Andrea
and today we are going to be talking about the differences and similarities
between Cuba and Puerto Rico
- I'm CUBAN and... - I'm Cuban and Puerto Rican.
The most obvious one is the flags.
Our flags are the same flags
- But the colors are switched. - Totally different colors.
The Puerto Rican flag
The part with the star is blue and then the stripes are red and white.
The Cuban flag has the blue stripes with the red triangle
Which one came first?
- I don't know... - No one knows.
No one knows why our flags look alike
Which one came first
I mean, you know, not that it's important
it's probably the Cuban one.
It's the part where I have to defend the Puerto Rican side.
The second thing is food
although both countries have very delicious food.
- I mean. - Yeah.
There are some differences.
The plates might have like the same name
but they might have different ingredients or different seasoning
and so they'll taste different.
They're usually using tropical fruits and vegetables
even though the islands are so far away from each other.
We're all using like plantains, rice beans, pineapple, things like that.
Yeah, the core of it is the same
- It's just like the last minute touches that. - Yeah.
- We'll make it Cuban or Puerto Rican. - Or the preparation.
So for this example we actually have fufu
which is Cuban.
And then we have mofongo which is the Puerto Rican version.
And they both sort of look the same
but they're prepared differently.
The Cuban version is made by boiling the plantains
and then mashing them up
and then putting little pieces of pork
and like onions and stuff like that.
We fry the plantains first
then you mash it
and then we put the pork and the onion stuff.
So my mom actually prepared this for us
it's very important that I mentioned that
because if not we would not have this
and then she will never watch any of my videos.
Honestly, you can't get it anywhere in life without a Cuban mom
and my mom's Cuban and I know that for a fact too.
For the Puerto Ricans
they like to have their
- It's chicken broth. - Yeah.
it's, it's the broth.
and so usually they like they pour it around the plate
or they just they like to combine the two things together.
Typically, I'm a very weird Puerto Rican
I don't like putting that on there
- I like to eat mofongo with ketchup - Okay, she puts ketchup on everything.
We're gonna try this right here.
This is turning into a culinary adventure.
They refused to give me ketchup
I just want to make that clear.
No, I don't even have ketchup in this house
One, two, three.
I feel happy.
I also really want ketchup
I'm assuming they taste the same, it's the same ingredients.
Okay, let's switch.
- Oh, it tastes really different. - Yeah.
It tastes really different
I've never had fufu before
because my parents tend to make more Puerto Rican dishes than they do Cuban.
That's literally what we're explaining, same ingredients
but the preparation changes it.
I think I like this way more than mofongo
The third thing is language
although in Puerto Rico and Cuba mainly everybody speaks Spanish
sort of might sound similar to like a foreign ear
but there are quite a lot of differences.
Yes, there are words that can be the same word
but then it can be insulting to Cubans
or it can be insulting to Puerto Ricans.
The Cubans will eat their r's and their s's
- Sometimes even their d's. - Yeah.
I mean like it's very breathy.
My accent goes in and out
it's sometimes Cuban and then sometimes Puerto Rican, depending.
When they get really excited they just start mumbling.
The younger generations are getting way more fake with it
For Puerto Ricans we say are our r's pretty crisp
I grew up saying this little thing to learn how to r my r's as a kid
I would say eres con R cigarro
but it's our accents that are super different.
There's also a lot of differences in our vocabulary
So we'll have different words for the same thing.
In Cuba will say frijoles for beans
- In Puerto Rico they say habichuelas. - Yeah.
I don't use that word, I use frijoles.
I just learned this, my mom taught me this.
There's the word bicho
and so for Cubans bicho is a little bug
and for Puerto Ricans
I don't know the English translation
but bicho is a curse word.
- You can't say bicho there. - Yeah.
I asked my mom and she doesn't know the translation for it in English
She just tells me not to say it around Puerto Ricans
but my mom uses it for bug.
So, you know the little bananas like the little tiny
the little ones like the baby bananas
in Cuban we say platanito
like plantains, it's platanito
cuz it's like, it's a small banana
and then in Puerto Rican they actually say guineo
I don't say either of those because I just say plátano
I don't even say platanito.
For orange juice a lot of Cubans will say...
Jugo de Naranja
and then Puerto Ricans
I don't know if it's an island thing or if it's a New York Rican thing
but I grew up saying Jugo de China
but I don't know.
I really don't know.
- Chinese, Chinese. - Yeah, I don't know.
in Cuba we say cake
but in Puerto Rico they usually use the word bizcocho.
My grandma uses bizcocho for like fancy cakes.
We call them pastelitos if they're like smaller cakes
Cubans I think mainly use pastelitos for like pastries
She wrote down a list that I can't read her handwriting.
It's in all capital letters
That is the lowercase C.
So, Cubans will say, ay dios mio
when something happens
and Puerto Ricans use it too
but mostly we say ay bendito
which is really like a poor baby
and sometimes we even shorten bendito
we say, ay dito.
dito, ay dito
and will caress your face, dito.
In Cuba we say guajiro
which I'm sure all of you have heard about if you know anything about Cuba.
The equivalent of that in Puerto Rico is Jíbaro
usually when people call little kids
not by their name but just calling them a kid
Cubans will say chico or chica
and a lot of people use that in other countries as well
but Puerto Ricans specifically will use nena and nene
- I like it better than saying chico and chica. - Yeah.
I feel like chico and chica it makes me think of the movies
when like white people are like hey chico, I hate it.
My mom's siblings I will say tia and tio
and then Puerto Ricans we will say tia and tio but we say titi for aunt
Oh no, I've never heard of that before
and every time I talk to my friend who's Mexican
I say titi, he thinks I'm saying like tit
and I'm like no.
So, enough of our differences
because we are all a happy family here in the Caribbean
we are now going to talk about the things that we have in common
and that bring us together.
The first of those things is music.
Our music is so mixed with our indigenous cultures
and then our afro Cubans and Puerto Ricans and Europeans
and they sound pretty much the same
they use a lot of the same like instruments.
The same kind of beats and, you know, like the melodies
it kind of follows the same sort of formula, I guess,
if you want to call it like that.
Puerto Rico and Cuba birth very talented musicians
so it's something that just
it's sort of famously known around the world.
We're also kind of known for like reggaeton music
I can't even do the beat, that stereotypical like sound beat
and we know it's like annoying cuz all the songs sound the same
but the thing is when you're from both of these countries you love it
and you can't figure out why
I equate it as being the heartbeat of our island
and that's a big thing,
Cubans and Puerto Ricans we love our island so much,
and our music reflects that
I mean I'm kind of the opposite
I don't like...
I like...
I kind of, I like the more classical Cuban music
that's, you know, just ones that you'll see the old guys playing on the side street
stuff by Celia Cruz
I like Marc Anthony stuff
except Marc Anthony is a crybaby.
The old stuff influenced our newer artists
even though pitbull's not everyone's favorite artist
you can tell he's so influenced by Celia Cruz.
She influenced everybody.
Another similarity if you haven't noticed by now we both talk with our hands.
Like I noticed that when you were talking we both have been doing this
and that's a very big thing for us in both countries.
That brings us into the next similarity which is our ancestry.
So, our ancestry in both islands,
European nations colonized both islands
so a lot of that is colonization blood.
Then we have afro-Cubans afro-Puerto Ricans
- We have Asian-Cubans. - Yep.
Not so many Asian-Puerto Ricans at least I've seen, there could be.
My Cuban side, my mom's originally from the Canary Islands
which is technically Spain but it's off the coast of Africa
and then my dad, his mother has European ancestry
but his dad has taíno blood which is the indigenous people in Puerto Rico
but taínos are also in Cuba and I think the Dominican Republic.
Another thing is there's a lot of Jewish people in Cuba
I didn't know that.
I believe that the first synagogue of the Western world
was actually in Cuba.
I had no idea about that, I didn't know.
I'm actually part Jewish and European.
I'm gonna look that off now because I had no idea
- Yeah, have you never heard of a juban? - No.
Oh well, now you know, Juban, Cuban Jewish
I think Spain pretty much held on to Cuba the most
and Puerto Rico Spain did hold on to it for a while
but France held on to it for a long time.
My last name is technically French
but it doesn't exist in the French language anymore.
Another obvious similarity between Cuba and Puerto Rico
is that they are both islands and they're both in the Caribbean.
They are very Islandish in their culture
and their way of being and their everyday life.
So, their climates are actually very similar
it's very humid and it can get very hot.
Both Cuba and Puerto Rico have rain forces.
Yeah I mean we have waterfalls
and all that stuff, does Puerto Rico?
Yeah it has waterfalls and everything.
Both Puerto Rico and Cuba have a huge passion
for both baseball and boxing.
For my family, we're very big baseball fans
like New York-Ricans
they're either huge Yankee fans
or they're smart like my family
- And they're huge Mets fans. - Oh boy.
I have no part, I have no part that.
For me it was the opposite,
since I was little we'd watched like the boxing matches
I actually never went to a baseball game until last year
which was my first time going to a baseball game.
That is it for this video
I hope that you enjoyed it
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You gotta go over there to see what it is that we're gonna do
the link for her channel is gonna be in the description down below
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For now we're gonna go.
So, I will see you when I see you, bye!
Hey wait, I want a flag too.
That's not possible.
You were saying.
Oh, no.
You just activated my Siri?
- The power of the Ricans. - Wait.
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