Varieties of Spanish in the United States:

6. Puerto Rican Spanish in the United States

116 6 Puerto Rican Spanish in the United States Introduction Puerto Ricans represent the second-largest Latino group in the United States. In much of the Northeast, Puerto Rican is virtually synonymous with Latino, and popular notions of Latino culture are often confused with the harsh reality of urban ghettoization, which was the sad fate of the first generations of Puerto Ricans in the industrial northeastern United States. Puerto Rico was visited by Columbus on his second voyage . In his descriptions, Columbus used the name preferred by the indigenous inhabitants, Boriquén. This word has been remade into the Spanish terms boricua, meaning “true Puerto Rican” in Puerto Rican Spanish, and the derived and more learned adjective borinqueño. When the Spaniards arrived in the Caribbean, the Taíno represented most of the indigenous population of Puerto Rico, but this group had all but disappeared within a century of European colonization. The adoption of the flotilla routes between Spain and Spanish America resulted in the complete marginalization of Puerto Rico, which lay well off the established paths. The Spaniards remaining in Puerto Rico turned to agriculture; sugar production was soon surpassed by coffee, ginger, tobacco, and cattle raising. Puerto Rico was ceded to the United States in 1898, through the Treaty of Paris, which ended the SpanishAmerican War. Following the Spanish-American War of 1898, United States’ attention focused on Cuba and the Philippines, while Puerto Rico was neglected. Its residents were given no official status as either U.S. citizens or colonial subjects for more than a decade. From 1898–1900 Puerto Rico was under U.S. military rule; the military administration came to an end with the Foraker Act, which placed Puerto Rico directly under the control of the U.S. Congress, which had the power to set tariffs and establish trade policies. Puerto Ricans did not receive U.S. citizenship until 1917, through the Jones Act, which also provided for a territorial governor appointed by Congress and for a population election of both houses of the Puerto Rican legislature. Puerto Ricans were not given the opportunity to elect their own governor until 1947, and the first elected governor, Luis Muñoz Marín (who took office at the beginning of 1949) became a symbol of growing Puerto Rican identity. Muñoz Marín was instrumental in negotiating a new political status for Puerto Rico, known as the Associated Free State (informally known as the commonwealth ), which created an ambiguous political situation for Puerto Rican residents . On one hand Puerto Ricans have no representatives in the U.S. Congress; on the other hand they are exempt from certain federal taxes. Despite a lack of representation in federal matters, Puerto Ricans were eligible for the draft, a circumstance that brought thousands of Puerto Ricans into military service in subsequent decades. The island also has a lower minimum wage than the United States, which has both attracted some mainland employers and also appears to have extended the depressed economic conditions on the island and the heavy dependence on federal assistance programs. In Puerto Rico political sentiments have usually been roughly evenly divided between those who wish to continue the Associate Free State, and those who wish for full statehood. A small but vocal minority consistently votes in favor of total independence and the formation of a sovereign nation. Under the first U.S. administration, all education in grades 9–12 was mandated to be taught in English, but in the first eight grades English was an obligatory “special subject.” By 1903 dissatisfaction was high among both Puerto Ricans and U.S. education officials, and the newly created school system was nearing collapse. In that year the U.S. education commissioner made English the sole language of instruction in all school grades, an event that triggered massive protests by Puerto Ricans and accusations of unpatriotic behavior by the United States. The effects of American administration inevitably pushed more Anglicisms into the Puerto Rican lexicon, while driving Spanish out of the classroom for several decades. The latter event retarded the establishment of an educated standard for Puerto Rican Spanish, because all varieties of Spanish were for a time treated as social outcasts. Eventually, Spanish was reinstated as the primary language of instruction in Puerto Rican schools, aided by the efforts of Luis PUERTO RICAN SPANISH IN THE UNITED STATES 117 118 CHAPTER SIX Muñoz Rivera, father...