For those in the culture, “Y el novio?” (“And the boyfriend?”) is a question we get far too often. At family reunions, holidays, and gossip sessions with aunts and uncles, you’ll probably hear the prying question asked once or twice, especially if you’re a single woman over the age of 21. Laura Acosta, 26, is aware that the answer to it, frankly, is the final boss to beat when it comes to an ever-growing jewelry collection. Encased in a safe behind her grandmother’s walls in Hialeah, Florida, is a gold cigar-style diamond ring, which is Acosta’s to claim as her own once she gets married.
“Ever since I started dating my boyfriend, she keeps bringing it up. It’s technically an engagement ring, but she did buy it for herself during her last marriage. She’s very Elizabeth Taylor. She’s been married five times,” explains Acosta, a Miami-based writer with Cuban roots. “I guess what [her husband] got her was too small for her, so she got something a little bigger. When he passed, she locked it up in the safe and said the first granddaughter to marry gets it. That seems like it’s gonna be me.” She’s tried the ring on a few times, she admits, and it eerily fits, something she takes as a sign from the powers that be.
Just like caldo recipes written on yellowing note cards and oral histories about our ancestors, Latinos pass down heirlooms as a way to keep our culture alive. Traditional heirlooms like gold rosaries, birthing quilts, wedding-day silverware, and tarnished silver rings feel akin to something you’d spot at a Brooklyn flea market, but to Latinos, they’re inherently more valuable than four-figure watches and vintage designer handbags passed down from generation to generation. While our homegrown heirlooms hailing from the Caribbean Islands, Central America, and South America might not resell for much on the secondhand market, their rich sentimental value and history seeped in generational struggle and strife surrounding the immigrant experience makes them feel priceless.