Identity Crisis
The effect of colonialism on a colonized people can often result in a situation better known to us today as an “identity crisis.” Studying the history of Puerto Rico under Spanish rule helps us to identify the problems found within modern notions of Puerto Rican identity. Such notions of national identity stem from the belief that Puerto Rico is a "self-defined community of people who share a sense of solidarity based on a belief in a common heritage and who claim political rights that may include self-determination" (Morris 12). However, such modern notions of solidarity contradict the fact that by 1898 Puerto Rican society was characterized by great racial and class differences. As claimed by José Luis González in his Puerto Rico: The Four Storeyed Country, these differences made "Puerto Rico […] a country so divided racially, socially, economically and culturally that it should be described as two countries rather than one" (Gonzalez14). The rise and fall of the international sugar market, and the subsequent ascendancy of the coffee market in the Puerto Rican economy, helped to create the "foreign elements" within Puerto Rico that make modern views of Puerto Rican identity extremely problematic.
The study and use of history has played an important role in helping to construct the concept of Puerto Rican national heritage. Francisco Scarano, in his Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico, 1815-1949: An Overview, asserts that notions of Puerto Rican national heritage have been portrayed as being an "anomalous case" within the Americas. He writes that many historians have claimed that Puerto Rico had an "economy and society which developed an advanced sugar industry during times of fairly open Atlantic slave trade, yet did not rely to any significant degree on the labor of African slaves" (Scarano 25). This suggests that the racial "heritage" of Puerto Ricans is not predominately black, and therefore, other races must have attributed to this hybridity, as well. Moreover, it also suggests that because forced slavery was not widely practiced on the island, a notion of solidarity could have existed amongst the Puerto Rican people during the 19th Century. However, could this example also serve as a precedent for modern uses of history to reinforce perceptions of national identity?
Unfortunately, the details surrounding the island’s social and economic structure at that particular time prevent its history from serving as a model for national unity. In the 1840s, sugar became very important in the international market.
Laura Briggs's work Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science, and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico continues a recent trend in connecting colonial histories to that of domestic issues affecting imperial powers, “colonialism was not something that happened ‘over there,’ with little or no effect on the internal dynamics and culture of the imperial power itself …. On the contrary, colonialism has had a profound effect on the culture and policy of the mainland.” Additionally, Briggs work pushes back against the traditional belief that U.S. colonial policy forced the sterilization of a large segment of the island’s female population. This argument was made famous by the documentary film “La Operacion”.
Scarano, Francisco. "Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico, 1815-1849: An Overview," from Scarano ,Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico: Plantation Economy of Ponce,1800-1850(Madison :U of Wisconsin Press,1984) 3-34.
The intention of this essay is to demonstrate to a vision rational, concordant political leader to the Puerto Rican, American and worldwide reality. It responds to the necessity that to the statehood it is necessary to imagine it and to expose it with all the evidence available, since many Puerto Ricans, including many political leaders, do not know like defending it or exposing it before the peculiar ones or our adversaries.
Guerra, Lillian. Popular Expression and National Identity in Puerto Rico: The Struggle for self, Community, and Nation, chs. 2-3 (Gainesville: U Press of Florida, 1998) 45-121.
Such inequality was not the only thing early Puerto Rican migrants experienced on the island. They also experienced severe economic set backs. Under the domination of the United States, Puerto Rico did not have control over their means of production. Instead, the United States possessed that power and transformed their island into a metropolitan economy. Workers were subjected to the changing demands of US capital expansion, and their migratory movements were shaped accordingly.
In this story, the reader can see exactly how, many Puerto Ricans feel when living on other grounds. Throughout this time, the boy that Rodriguez presents us realizes he has his culture and that he wants to preserve it as much as he can. “Because I’m Puerto Rican”. I ain’t no American. And I’m not a Yankee flag-waver”
Sugar in its many forms is as old as the Earth itself. It is a sweet tasting thing for which humans have a natural desire. However there is more to sugar than its sweet taste, rather cane sugar has been shown historically to have generated a complex process of cultural change altering the lives of all those it has touched, both the people who grew the commodity and those for whom it was grown. Suprisingly, for something so desireable knowledge of sugar cane spread vey slow. First found in Guinea and first farmed in India (sources vary on this), knowledge of it would only arrive in Europe thousands of years later. However, there is more to the history of sugar cane than a simple story of how something was adopted piecemeal into various cultures. Rather the history of sugar, with regards to this question, really only takes off with its introduction to Europe. First exposed to the delights of sugar cane during the crusades, Europeans quickly acquired a taste for this sweet substance. This essay is really a legacy of that introduction, as it is this event which foreshadowed the sugar related explosion of trade in slaves. Indeed Henry Hobhouse in `Seeds of Change' goes so far as to say that "Sugar was the first dependance upon which led Europeans to establish tropical mono cultures to satisfy their own addiction." I wish, then, to show the repurcussions of sugar's introduction into Europe and consequently into the New World, and outline especially that parallel between the suga...
Intermarriage between Puerto Rico’s original Indians, Whites, and Black inhabitants has made Puerto Rican society a mixture of races.
After the Spanish-American war, Spain granted the United States with full ownership of the island of Puerto Rico, which largely benefited the United States with profitable agricultural land, in the same way, Puerto Rican citizens were all benefited when they received U.S. citizenship, this granted them with greater opportunities that awaited them in the United States. However, despite their citizenship, Puerto Ricans are yet to have a vote in national U.S. elections. The ownership of the island has mostly benefited the United States as it is able to control the land, and impose tax and restrictions. Due to this, Puerto Rico transformed from a local economy, to one that is dominated by external U.S. companies. Because of many programs that have been implemented in order to stimulate economic development, the economy has progressed. However, one of the negative side effects left the population dealing with high income tax, as well as leading the economy further away from the local farmers and into the capitalist economy of the United States. It seems as if the relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico benefit the capitalist country and its economy but fails to befit much of the islands population as they are later faced with high income tax and high unemployment rates. Because of the high unemployment, the Puerto
...uence. In addition to this, Puerto Rican music demonstrates that although there was outside influence, the Puerto Rican identity still grew strong. This is demonstrated by the various protest songs, and the strong ties between musicians on the island and on the mainland. In the face of early US colonization, Puerto Rican culture came under the same conflicts as it did under Spanish rule, and reacted much in the same way. While US intervention may have masked the appearance of "true" Puerto Rican music and culture, the lives and the works of the Puerto Ricans themselves showed that it is possible both to accept new cultural themes and to struggle to preserve one’s native culture at the same time.
The Caribbean has been an unexplained region throughout the test of time because there are many different depictions of what actually is happening. The ranging cultures in the Caribbean bring about many different points of view. A perfect example is how Cliff, Mintz, and Benitez-Rojo describe their version of the Caribbean. They discuss affairs in the Caribbean from the days of slave trading to present day issues. In analyzing their anecdotes and books, one can find not only similarities between them, but discrepancies as well. All three authors express their thoughts vividly, unleashing ideas about the Caribbean. Among the most important themes of these ideas were that of the plantation, identity, and social hierarchy.
In order to understand the current situation of Puerto Ricans one must look at their history and retrace the sequence of events that led to the current formation of the Puerto Rican people. An important component of this history is the time Puerto Rico spent under Spanish rule. Studying this portion of Puerto Rican history forces us to acknowledge the contribution the Spaniards, European immigrants, and African slaves had on Puerto Rican identity as we consider it today. This also addresses contemporary debates on Puerto Rican identity. An example of this is evident in an essay written by Jose Luis Gonzales entitled "Puerto Rico : Th Four Storied Country". In the article Gonzales points out what he feels is a disregard toward the African contribution to the Puerto Rican identity. He argues that the first Puerto Ricans were black , based on his interpretation that Africans were the first group to come to Puerto Rico and reproduce who did not have ties to a "motherland" because they were slaves. This is unlike the Spaniard elites and Criolles that demonstrated their commitment and loyalty to Spain. Since they had no other place to go, Puerto Rico was their motherland. Gonzalez also points out that the culture of a region is always the culture of the elite, not the popular culture.
...ricans accept from financial, psychological, political and communal exploitation at the hands of strong Whites in this homeland. As an conclusion of this exploitation, very dark persons generally are put into positions where the ascribe of a lawless person proceed is often glimpsed as the most creative tenacity to their problems. Most Caucasians, whereas, will expected not ever recognize the predicament in which most very dark find themselves. Thieved from our homeland and then compelled to work under the saddest situation imaginable. African American not paid any money and kept in slavery of distinct types and newest tendencies up to this very day. Very dark individuals have been under the unchanging order of whites since approaching into this homeland. Today, white America’s most productive means of keeping that order is through the lawless person fairness scheme.
Every day , Puerto Rico is slowly adapting into the American way of life and is gradually losing what is left of their culture. Perhaps this is because Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States. The poem “ Coca Cola and Coco Frio” by Martin Espada is a great example of someone who encounters the Americanized culture of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is struggling to preserve their own identity.
When one thinks of Barbados, one thinks of luscious, turquoise blue waters; soft white sand beaches; blue, white clouded skies; fresh fruits; exotic, delicious dishes and honeymoons. One, however, tends to forget the formation of this land. This Caribbean luxury Island has much history and great heritage. In this report, I will detail Barbados’s location, history, labor relations, population size and structure, industries, plus add a little zest with the beauty of the Island.