Puerto Rico

Resistance in Paradise: Rethinking 100 Years of U.S. Involvement in the Caribbean and the Pacific
Johnny Irizarry, Maria Mills-Torres, Marta Moreno Vega, Anita Rivera
American Friends Service Committee

Puerto Rico is a mountainous tropical archipelago in the Caribbean that measures 3,423 square miles. Its neighbors include the Dominican Republic and Haiti (two countries that share a single island), Cuba, and Jamaica to the west and the U.S. Virgin Islands and the lower Antilles to the east. South America lies to the south and the U.S. mainland to the north.
Puerto Rico has large modern cities and small country towns. Population centers include the main island of Puerto Rico and two smaller islands, Culebra and Vieques. Puerto Rico's current population is more than 3.5 million people. There are also 2.7 million Puerto Ricans living on the U.S. mainland. Puerto Ricans are the second largest Latino group in the United States. Spanish is the language spoken on the island, with English taught as a second language in the schools.
The Puerto Rican people reflect the varied physical and cultural heritage of the different groups that have mixed together to create the island's population: the original indigenous inhabitants, European settlers (mainly from Spain), and Africans. As a result, Puerto Ricans range across the full spectrum of skin colors. The Puerto Rican experience presents some differences from the traditional ways people in the United States are accustomed to understanding race.

Native Inhabitants and Spanish Colonization

The original name of the island, given by the indigenous Taino-Arawak people, was "Boriken," which means "land of the brave people." The Tainos were an agricultural people with highly developed political, social, religious, and cultural beliefs and practices, whose ancestors go back to 4,000 BC.
In 1493, on his second voyage to the Americas, Christopher Columbus claimed Borinquen for Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain. He originally named the island of the Tainos San Juan Bautista. The island's name was later changed to Puerto Rico, which means "rich port." Within sixty years, most of the Taino population was destroyed through war against the Spanish invaders, through the devastation of slavery in gold mines and plantations, and through diseases that the Europeans brought to the island.
Almost immediately after the arrival of the Spanish, the Tainos began to rebel against colonization. Caciques or chiefs led revolts against the invading Spaniards. Famous legends and historical documents from the Spanish themselves tell stories of this resistance, led by famous caciques such as Urayoan and Agueybana II. Even before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors, Cacique Urayoan had warned his people of the coming devastation. Legend tells that he had a vision of the coming of white-skinned men riding animals (horses) that would bring great destruction to his people. He was one of the first caciques to call his people to rebellion and to spread the word to other caciques to resist Spanish colonization.
Many Tainos escaped from the oppression of the Spanish by fleeing to other Caribbean islands, where they joined the Caribs (the native inhabitants of the lower Antillean Islands) in resisting Spanish colonization. Despite the decimation of the Taino people, their influence lives on as a permanent physical and cultural element of Puerto Rican life. For example, many Arawak-Taino words passed into Spanish (and, in some cases, from there into English), such as huracan (hurricane) and hamaca (hammock). Taino musical instruments, such as maracas and the guiro (an instrument made from gourds), continue to play a key role in Puerto Rican musical forms.
Once the Taino population was largely destroyed, the Spanish began enslaving African to fill their need for labor. African slavery was a major engine of the Puerto Rican economy from 1508 to March 22, 1873, when it was finally abolished.

Puerto Rico's African Heritage

Some scholars believe that there is evidence of an African presence in the Americas prior to the Spanish arrival in the late fifteenth century. Archeological studies have discovered what may be African artifacts and human skeletons in parts of Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean that predate the Europeans by at least 2,000 years. For example, evidence of exchanges between the great Olmec culture of Mexico and the Nubian-Kemetic cultures of Africa during the period 1450-800 BC has been found in La Venta and Palenque in Mexico.
Between 1310 and 1491 AD Mandingo merchant explorers from Africa made more than fifty trips to various Caribbean and Central and South American points.
In addition, the Spanish themselves were deeply influenced by African culture. The Moors of North Africa had a permanent impact on the development of Spanish history, art, and culture through their occupation of Spanish territory, which lasted approximately 800 years. Free Africans, known as libertos, originally travelled with the Spanish conquistadors to the Americas. A liberto was a man or woman of African origin who came to settle in Puerto Rico from Spain. Two examples are:
Juan Gariido, who accompanied Juan Ponce de Leon (the first governor of Puerto Rico assigned by the Spanish crown) in exploring the coast of Florida in 1506. Gariido is also known for bringing the first wheat and other new vegetable seeds to the Americas.
Francisco Gallego, the first Spanish entrepreneur of African origin in Puerto Rico.
Enslaved Africans were sold to the Spanish by Portuguese slavers working from ports in central-west Africa. African slaves were brought first to the Caribbean islands and from there to other parts of the Americas. The entire Western Hemisphere, including the Caribbean as well as North, Central, and South America, has a common African ancestry, originating from central-west Africa. Historians estimate that anywhere from fifteen to fifty million Africans were taken from Africa between 1482 and 1888. The lack of food and extreme physical abuses experienced in the Middle Passage across the Atlantic often killed up to a third of the enslaved Africans.
As early as 1514, enslaved Tainos and Africans in Puerto Rico joined forces in revolt against slavery. By 1848 more than twenty revolts had occurred. Cimarrones (fugitive slaves) planned individual escapes and collective revolts. Many cimarrones would escape to the remote mountains of the island or even other Caribbean or Central or South American lands, where they formed free communities. Some of their descendants survive to this day, especially along the Atlantic Coast of Central and South America. Many others were killed in heroic attempts to obtain their freedom.
Throughout the 365 years of slavery in Puerto Rico, there was also a large pupulation of free Puerto Ricans of African descent. In addition to revolting or escaping, slaves could also negotiate to buy their freedom and that of their families. Most free Puerto Ricans of African descent, as well as mulatos or mestizos, worked in a variety of occupations such as agriculture or domestic labor, or as artisans, merchants, or ship hands. Many continues the struggle against slavery and racism, becoming abolitionists and freedom fighters. People of African descent have made pronounced contributions to Puerto Rico's historical, social, intellectual, artistic, and cultural development.
African influence may also be traced in many words from African languages that have become a permanent part of Puerto Rican Spanish (and, in some cases, English): mango (mango), candungo (storage pot), mofongo (a plantain dish), mondongo (a stew), guineo (banana), or chevere (good!). Puerto Rican musical instruments such as la clave (also known as par de palos or "two sticks"), drums with stretched animal skin such as bongos or congas, and Puerto Rican music-dance forms such as la bomba or la plena are likewise rooted in Africa.
Puerto Rican cuisine also has a strong African influence.

Puerto Rico After 1898

By the nineteenth century, Puerto Ricans were a distinct people, aspiring to achieve independence from Spanish rule and establish their own nation. On September 23, 1868, independence fighters struck out in the "Grito de Lares" (Cry of Lares) and declared a democratic republic. Although this uprising was not successful for long, it did win a series of concessions, including a process for achieving full independence from Spain. On July 17, 1898, an independent government was officially installed in Puerto Rico. A week later, however, the island was invaded by U.S. forces. After 400 years of Spanish domination, the island was now under the control of the United States.
By the time of the Spanish-American War, Puerto Rico's indigenous, Spanish, and African roots had blended together into the island's unique political, social, religious, and cultural life. Much of what we know today as Puerto Rican culture had been forged by the end of the nineteenth century. Puerto Rico's artistic and cultural traditions, literature, music, and visual arts are recognized internationally and have made pronounced contributions to the development of artistic expression - in Latin America, among Latinos in the United States, and internationally.
Religion, especially the Catholic Church, has also played a major role in Puerto Rican history, especially in political, social, and cultural traditions.
As throughout the hemisphere, the impact of the church has been extremely complex. For the conquistadors, forcible conversion to Christianity served as a justification for the enslavement of the Tainos and Africans. As the centuries passed, however, the Puerto Rican people shaped religion into one of their central modes of cultural expression.
After 1898, a new colonial era entered the lives of the Puerto Rican people. Puerto Rico was now ruled as a possession of the United States. Conflict between the people and their new rulers emerged first over language. Illiteracy was widespread at that time, affecting 85 percent of the population, and the United States expected no resistance from the Puerto Ricans when it imposed English-only laws on the island. Puerto Rican intellectuals and independentistas (people who fought for Puerto Rican independence) resisted the replacement of the Spanish language with English. From 1898 until the establishment of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico in 1952, U.S. governors maintained some type of English-only law over Puerto Rico. In 1952, Spanish once again became the official language of Puerto Rico，although the use of English continues to be required in some educational, governmental, and judicial functions.
In 1917 President Woodrow Wilson signed the Jones Act, which made Puerto Ricans citizens of the United States. Those who chose to reject U.S. citizenship would become exiles in their own homeland. Others left the island as a rejection of U.S. domination. U.S. citizenship, extended in the midst of World War I, brought with it the imposition of military service on Puerto Ricans.
Since that time, hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans from both the island and the United States have served in the U.S. military, first through the draft and now as volunteers. In many cases Puerto Ricans have been overrepresented in the military and have borne a disproportionate share of casualties - as well as facing racial, ethnic, and language discrimination.
On July 25, 1952, in commemoration of the date of the U.S. invasion of Puerto Rico in 1898, a Puerto Rican constitution was adopted establishing the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The U.S. Congress had conferred commonwealth status on Puerto Rico in July 1950; now it was also enshrined in Puerto Rican law. The Popular Democratic Party continued to govern until 1968, when a growing movement favoring statehood for Puerto Rico won the governor's post.
To this hay, Puerto Rico remains a territorial possession of the United States. Puerto Rico is subject to the judicial and legal system of the United States, and U.S. federal agencies implement federal laws and programs in Puerto Rico.
Despite their U.S. citizenship, Puerto Ricans still have an anomalous legal status - neither fully independent nor fully a part of the United States. For example, Puerto Ricans on the island cannot vote for the president of the United States, but Puerto Ricans residing in the U.S. mainland can. Puerto Ricans on the island are exempt from federal taxes, but have a system of local taxes very similar to that of the U.S. mainland. A nonvoting "resident commissioner" represents Puerto Rico in the U.S. House of Representatives. (In addition, there are currently three elected U.S. congresspeople of Puerto Rican descent representing districts in New York and Chicago.)

Twentieth Century Nationalist Movements

From 1898 until 1947 the U.S. government ran military and civil political administrations on the island of Puerto Rico. In 1948, for the first time, the United States allowed Puerto Ricans to elect their own governor. They voted in Luis Munoz Marin (1898-1980), a Puerto Rican. Munoz Marin, who served as governor until 1965, originally believed in independence for Puerto Rico. He later led his party (the Popular Democratic Party, founded in 1938), in establishing Puerto Rico as a Free Associated State. They chose as their party emblem the profile of a Puerto Rican jibaro (peasant) wearing a pava (straw hat). Under the emblem they placed the slogan "Pan, Tierra y Libertad" (Bread, Land, and Liberty).
Munoz Marin met with opposition from the nationalist movement, led by Pedro Albizu Campos (1891-1965). The Nationalist Party was founded in 1922, demanding independence for Puerto Rico from the United States. Through the 1950s, the Nationalists continued their fight for Puerto Rican independence. In 1937 the Puerto Rican police opened fire on a peaceful protest march by the Nationalist Party in the city of Ponce. Eighteen people were killed that day and 200 wounded, in what became known as the Ponce Massacre. New groups advocating for independence continued to develop. In 1946 the Puerto Rican Independence Party was founded. Later the Movement for Independence (MPI) was formed; in 1971, this group changed its name to the Puerto Rican Socialist Party.
In 1950 there was another Nationalist uprising. Thousands of independence sympathizers were jailed and more than thirty were killed. Five Nationalists were killed in an attempt to assassinate Governor Luis Munoz Marin.
Shortly thereafter, two Nationalists brought the issue of Puerto Rican independence to world attention when they assaulted Blair House, the residence of President Harry Truman in Washington, DC, while the White House was being renovated. On March 1, 1954, Lolita Lebon and three other Nationalists opened fire on the U.S. House of Representatives, demanding independence for Puerto Rico. Five U.S. congressmen were wounded in that attack and the Nationalists were sentenced to 56 years in prison. Lolita Lebron and the other Nationalists were pardoned in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter. They toured cities in the United States with large Puerto Rican populations and then returned to Puerto Rico, where they were met by hundreds of thousands of cheering Boricuas (people from Borinquen - that is, Puerto Ricans).
A major scandal regarding police surveillance broke in Puerto Rico in the late 1980s, when it was revealed that Puerto Rican and U.S. law-enforcement agencies had worked together from the 1930s onward to maintain files on as many as 75,000 Puerto Rican activists, on both the island and the U.S. mainland. Not only independentistas but also unions, religious and cultural groups, women's groups, and others were targeted in this operation. Many activists were subjected to blacklisting and other forms of harassment.
Armed actions in support of Puerto Rican independence continued through the 1980s; to this day, fourteen independence activists remain in jail in the United States, convicted of acts of "sedition," including bombings and the possession of firearms. These members of a group known as the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional (National Liberation Armed Forces) consider themselves to be political prisoners, and their sympathizers have organized a national and international campaign to press for their release.

The U.S. in Puerto Rico

Under U.S. rule Puerto Rico become one of the most militarized territories in the world. Citing Puerto Rico's strategic location in the Caribbean and the need for "national security," the United States has built military bases throughout the island. Militarization has greatly affected the lives of Puerto Ricans. For example, since the 1940s the Puerto Rican island of Vieques has been at the center of a political controversy between the people of Puerto Rico and the U.S. armed forces. In the early 1940s the U.S. Navy seized two-thirds of the land in Vieques to be used for U.S. military purposes. The island's population dropped from 10,000 to 7,000. Today Viequenses (residents of Vieques) live in the central section of their island, while the navy owns and operates the western and eastern sections.
Many people from Vieques and the main island of Puerto Rico have resisted this take-over of their lands by the U.S. Navy through political action. In 1978, for example, a group of fishing communities organized a protest by taking forty small fishing boats into the middle of the navy's weapons-testing exercises. The navy exercises were killing the fish, which local people depended on to survive. Protest actions such as this one continued into the 1980s. Many Puerto Ricans have been arrested for such acts of resistance.
Beginning in the 1950s, the governments of both Puerto Rico and the United States promoted a development strategy for the island known as "Operation Bootstrap." Briefly described, Operation Bootstrap consisted of a plan to transform the island of Puerto Rico from an agricultural society to an industrial one. Tax exemptions prompted more than 100 of the 500 largest U.S. corporations to set up operations in Puerto Rico. As a result of this rapid industrialization, Puerto Rican agriculture has been greatly weakened and the island has stopped growing its own food. Today, 85 percent of what Puerto Ricans eat is imported, mostly from the United States.
Industrialization has brought benefits but also costs: the dramatic growth of industry in Puerto Rico and the influx of petrochemical plants in the 1970s have greatly increased environmental pollution in the island. Operation Bootstrap provoked the movement of huge numbers of Puerto Ricans from rural to urban areas as they searched for work. It also created an enormous migration of Puerto Ricans to the United States: more than 40 percent of the Puerto Rican population now lives on the U.S. mainland.
Puerto Rican women have also been the object of population control policies. Beginning in the 1950s, large numbers of Puerto Rican women working in factories were sterilized. Women factory workers were given time off to attend appointments in clinics that were located within the factory itself. Social workers would visit their homes to follow up on women who had missed an appointment at one of these clinics. By 1974, 35 percent of Puerto Rican women of child-bearing age - some 200,000 women - were permanently sterilized. By 1980, Puerto Rico had the highest per-capita rate of sterilization among women in the world. From the 1950s through 1980, Puerto Rico was also used as a testing ground for birth control pills while they were under development. Pills twenty times stronger than the ones used today were tested on Puerto Rican women living in housing projects.

Migration: Puerto Ricans in the United States

Puerto Ricans started coming to the United States more than a century and a half ago. Their numbers increased after Puerto Rico was ceded to the United States by Spain. A massive wave of migration to the mainland United States began after World War II, as farmworkers came to work in the produce farms of the East Coast while other migrants traveled to the urban areas of the East and Midwest to work in factories.
Many U.S. farms and companies recruited workers directly out of Puerto Rico to work as far away as Hawai'i.
In legal terms, Puerto Ricans are not considered immigrants, because they are U.S. citizens. Nonetheless, their motives for coming to the U.S. mainland resemble those of every other immigrant groups: pursuit of the "American Dream" and a better social and economic situation for themselves and their families. From the 1940s to the 1960s the labor force participation rate of Puerto Ricans was among the highest of any group in the United States. In those days there was a great demand for factory workers and semi-skilled labor in the United States. In addition, Puerto Ricans were known for their expertise in making cigars, and many of them came to the United States to work in the tobacco industry.
Puerto Rican migrants faced social, educational, housing, and employment discrimination. They also confronted difficulties rooted in language differences. Thousands of Puerto Rican workers, especially women factory workers, were paid lower wages than those paid to white workers. Discrimination came from all directions, including, initially, unequal treatment from labor unions and even exclusion from them.
In recent decades, as U.S. industry has been restructured through automation and the flight of jobs to lower-wage areas of the world, the demand for semi-skilled labor has collapsed in U.S. urban areas, where most of the Puerto Rican population resides. As a result, Puerto Rican communities are facing a situation of extreme unemployment and under employment, leading to ever-deepening poverty. Puerto Ricans have the lowest median income and highest poverty rate of all Latino groups in the United States. The consequences of such difficult conditions are manifested in high drop-out rates among students, high number of single-parent households, drug addiction, lack of access to health care, and other social ills, which have reached alarming proportions within Puerto Rican communities throughout the United States.
These communities have historically responded to their problems by community organizing to build community-based support institutions, including religious, advocacy, and political organizations. Numerous Puerto Rican support institutions have been established to further the search for democratic rights, to improve the delivery of social services, and to promote cultural, spiritual, educational, and economic development for the Puerto Rican community.
In the 1960s and 1970s, one of the best-known Puerto Rican political organization to emerge from struggles for social justice in the United States was known as the Young Lords. Young Puerto Ricans living in Chicago and in "El Barrio" (East Harlem in New York City) emerged as community political leaders. Their models were the Black Panther Party and the independence movement in Puerto Rico. The Young Lords organized community protest actions and tool over institutions such as churches, hospitals, and public service vehicles, to dramatize their demand for human and civil rights, better health and social services, and child care. The Young Lords organized in other cities with high concentrations of Puerto Ricans, including Chicago, Philadelphia, and Hartford, Connecticut. They organized their communities around political and social issues affecting their lives in the United States and over the political status of Puerto Rico. Their attention to this latter issue continued a tradition dating back to the efforts of Puerto Rican exiles in the late 1800s.

The Future

The future political status of Puerto Rico continues to be a burning issue for all Puerto Ricans. The three political options are:
1. Commonwealth: the current status, established in 1952.
2. Statehood: Puerto Rico would become a state of the United States.
3. Independence: Puerto Rico would become an independent sovereign nation, in control of its own affairs.
The issue regarding the status of Puerto Rico are complex. Beginning in 1946, the Decolonization Committee of the United Nations required the United States to report to it on a regular basis on the political, social, and economic status of Puerto Rico. After the establishment of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico in 1952, the United Nations declared that Puerto Rico had reached a new constitutional status and decided that it would no longer require such reports. In 1960s, as a result of continued pressure from the Puerto Rican independence movement, the United Nations decided to reopen discussions on the political status of Puerto Rico.
In1967 a plebiscite (referendum) was held in Puerto Rico on the issue of political status. The majority of the people voted for the continuation of commonwealth status. In 1993 another plebiscite was held; this time 46.3 percent of the people voted in favor of statehood, 48.6 percent voted to continue commonwealth status, and 4.4 percent voted for independence. In 1994, the Puerto Rican legislature requested that the U.S. Congress define the necessary steps to resolve the future political status of Puerto Rico. In response, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives (H.R.856), bringing the United States closer to a national discussion of the future status of Puerto Rico.
Despite the many challenges Puerto Ricans face today, they continue to play a significant role in the politics and government of the United States and to bring a wealth of contributions to all aspects of the economic, political, social, professional, intellectual, artistic, and cultural life of the United States.

Chart: Three Options for Political Status

Commonwealth	Statehood	Independence
Puerto Rico has commonwealth status today (1998). This status has the following characteristics: Puerto Ricans are citizens of the United States and can travel freely within U.S. territory. Puerto Rico has its own constitution. The Puerto Rican government has control over most domestic affairs, but not foreign affairs. The United States regulates Puerto Rico's contact with other countries. Puerto Ricans living in Puerto Rico cannot vote for the president of the United States. If the draft were reinstated, Puerto Ricans could be drafted into the U.S. military. Puerto Rico sends one nonvoting representative to the U.S. Congress. The Puerto Rican governor and the members of the Puerto Rican House and Senate are elected by popular vote. The United States can control the use of the Puerto Rican National Guard. U.S. environmental laws apply to Puerto Rico. However, they are not enforced as strictly in Puerto Rico as they are in the United States. The United States controls Puerto Rico's postal and immigration regulations. Puerto Ricans do not pay federal taxes, although they do pay taxes to the commonwealth government. The United States provides for Puerto Rico's defense. The U.S. military uses Puerto Rico as a base in the Caribbean and as a military testing site for weapons.	If Puerto Rico became a state of the United States, it would have the following characteristics: All Puerto Ricans would be U.S. citizens, with the right to travel freely throughout U.S. territory. In time, Puerto Rico would most likely lose a sense of being its own country. Only the U.S. flag and national anthem would be honored. Schools would teach U.S. history and culture even more than they do today. People living in the state of Puerto Rico would vote in all federal elections (including for president of the United States). Puerto Rico would have a state constitution, and representatives would be elected to a state legislature. If the draft were reinstated, Puerto Ricans could be drafted into the U.S. military. The state of Puerto Rico would have voting representatives in both houses of the U.S. Congress. The state of Puerto Rico would have a governor like all other states in the United States. The federal government would control the use of Puerto Rico's National Guard, as it does with all states. Puerto Rican state laws plus U.S. federal environmental laws would protect the environment. All U.S. federal regulations would also apply to the state of Puerto Rico. Puerto Ricans would pay federal taxes, as well as state and local taxes. The United States would provide for the defense of Puerto Rico, as it does for all states in the United States. The U.S. military could continue to use Puerto Rico as a base in the Caribbean and as a military testing site for weapons.	If Puerto Rico became independent, it would be a sovereign nation, with the same control of its own affairs as any country. It would have the following characteristics: Citizens of both Puerto Rico and the United States would no longer automatically have the right to travel between the two countries. They would be subject to the immigration laws of both countries. Puerto Rico would have its own constitution with control over domestic and foreign affairs. For example, Puerto Rico might be free to do more trading with countries other than the United States. Puerto Ricans living in Puerto Rico would no longer be citizens of the United States. They would not vote in U.S. elections, but in their own elections. Puerto Rico would have its own government, including representative bodies and elected officials. Puerto Rico would elect a president with more power than the current governor. The House and Senate, or their equivalents, would have more power than the current Puerto Rican House and Senate. The Puerto Rican National Guard would no longer be controlled by the U.S. government. Puerto Rico would make and enforce its own laws to protect the environment. Puerto Rico would develop its own postal and immigration regulations. Puerto Ricans would pay taxes to their own government. Puerto Rico would have to develop its own military defense. The U.S. military would no longer be able to use Puerto Rico as a base in the Caribbean and as a military testing site for weapons, unless a special agreement were negotiated between the two countries.