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Goshen professor Rafael Falcón sits in his office.|84167

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"I stare intently at myself in the mirror. Dark brown eyes look back at me. I see a face framed by thick, coarse hair. The lips are pronounced; the ears and nose are small. My skin is a deep suntan brown. My reflection shows a beautiful mixture of races: Caribbean Indian, Spanish and African. I am Puerto Rican, Hispanic, Latino." -- Rafael Falcón's "The Reflection of my Essence"

A native of Puerto Rico and a longtime resident of the Midwest, Goshen College professor Rafael Falcón has spent much of his adult life reconciling his native culture with the American one he adopted.

The journey has not been a simple one for Falcón, now 62, who first began living in the United States as a college student at the University of Iowa. Soon after the move, he and Christine Yoder (now his wife of 40 years) would have to adapt to each other -- "I think to understand that we came from different backgrounds and accepted those is the main thing," he says -- and eventually raise two bilingual sons.

Studying the cultural adaptations he's made in food, language and day-to-day relationships has consumed much of his curiosity, passion and life's work -- he is author of numerous books on Hispanic culture, notably the 1999 nonfiction book "Salsa: A Taste of Hispanic Culture."

His newest release, "Mi Gente: In Search of the Hispanic Soul," is a collection of fictional short stories. "Mi Gente" was a cathartic way for Falcón to come to terms with a shifting of his own identity in the years since he left his hometown of Aibonito, Puerto Rico, in 1976. Some stories, such as "The Reflection of My Essence" are exercises in self-examination. Others, like "Felícita's Gift," are a way to trace the ancestral blendings that have resulted in what is commonly known now as Hispanic culture. The stories are fictional, but the contents of each story, no doubt, stem directly from somewhere very close to Falcón's own heart.

The changes have been difficult, he admits, but necessary -- his message in "Mi Gente" is one of multicultural acceptance, not a rejection of one in favor of another.

"Things have to change," Falcón says, "It's a fusion of things, not one is wrong or right, it's just different."

He understands that cultures change with time and space, but the grandfather (or abuelo) of two just hopes his young grandchildren respect their increasingly distant Hispanic heritage.

"The possibility of them eating rice and beans is very limited," Falcón says with a smile, "but at least they'll be proud of who they are, and know that their grandpa came from another place."