Our Stepchild: Puerto Rico
by RICHARD PATTEE
1
SPEAKING before the subcommittee of the Senate I Committee on Territories and Insular Affairs, Governor Rexford Guy Tugwell of Puerto Rico made a remarkable statement, one phrase of which caught more attention of the American press than the entire thirty-four printed pages of the testimony. Governor Tugwell declared: —
“It is a matter of doubt whether the mass of the Puerto Rican people face a future more secure than was the case at the time of the American occupation — whether the word is interpreted in the political or the economic sense.”
A minor tempest was the reaction to this very deliberate comparison between the state of affairs in 1898 and that prevailing in 1943, The New York Times took occasion to comment caustically on what it deemed an irresponsible utterance. The Washington Post cited figures to prove that the Governor was out of his mind in contending that Puerto Rico at the end of the Spanish regime could possibly have been better off than it is today. Commerce has increased; imports and exports have reached most comforting levels; the number of schoolhouses is ten times greater than in 1898. The population itself — and here was the telling figure — had doubled in a mere forty years. How then, it was queried, could it be said, and especially by one in high position, that there was any remote comparison between the situation of the island when it came under American sovereignty and its situation today?
This controversy, a mere flurry which brought no lasting or intelligent concern for Puerto Rican affairs, reveals the state of mind that almost invariably afflicts our thinking about this island. The fact that Governor Tugwell was profoundly right made no impression. The suggestion that people who enjoy the ineffable blessing of American sovereignty could possibly have been better off under the Spanish flag was simply an outrageous distortion of the truth! Every school child knows that the Spanish regime was tyrannical, obscurantist, and retrograde, incapable of bringing happiness to anyone.
Unfortunately our thinking about Puerto Rico has included neither a concern for its history nor an ability to face the hard and cold realities. It is a sorry commentary that in spite of forty-five years of our rule, of increasing contact and growing interdependence, the human and spiritual problems of the Puerto Rican people are little appreciated by the Congress of the United States. To thumb through the thousands of pages of testimony given on Puerto Rico before diverse Congressional committees is to realize that these hundreds of statements have not contributed to any real understanding of the issues at stake.
The United States entered upon the SpanishAmerican War with practically no idea of what it was all about. By no remote implication could a war fought to restore law and order in Cuba have included the acquisition of the island of Puerto Rico. Nevertheless, the McKinley administration took upon itself the occupation and possession of this island. Its inhabitants, of course, had nothing to say about it. One morning they awoke to discover an American fleet off San Juan. There occurred what passed for a bombardment. Later, American troops in a slight skirmish near the town of Coamo overcame the perfunctory Spanish resistance and Puerto Rico was American.
On July 25, 1898, General Miles uttered a number of phrases about the “ banner of freedom, “the fostering arm of a free people,” “justice and humanity,” “bringing protection and promoting prosperity,” and the “bestowing of the blessings of liberal institutions.” His remarks were not a statement of policy, but in the aftermath the Puerto Rican people took them seriously, and Governor Tugwell has spoken of them as a contractual arrangement with the Puerto Rican people, who awaited its fulfillment. They are still waiting.
Puerto Rico is unique in our colonial experience. No other territory under the American flag offers an analogy. The Philippine Islands are a vast and heterogeneous territory, divided in blood, language, and religion. The area is large, the clash of interests profound. Even so, the destiny of the Philippine people was never really in doubt. It was clear that they were ultimately to form a nation.
The Territory of Hawaii is no case in point. The present-day Hawaiian people are a composite of many races, the least important of which is the Hawaiian. The inroads of Asiatic immigration have changed the physiognomy of the islands to such an extent that it would probably be hazardous to speak even of a Hawaiian nationality. There is no common tongue, except in so far as everybody can speak English, and certainly no common cultural tradition. As the crossroads of the Pacific, the Hawaiian Islands partake of a multiplicity of creeds and cultures. Nevertheless there is a fairly clear prospect that ultimately the Hawaiian Islands will form a state in the Union.
Puerto Rico is an island peopled largely by persons of European descent. The African element is strong but in the course of the years has become more and more absorbed into the population. It is the one island of the West Indies, with the possible exception of Cuba, in which the European Spanish racial stock is preponderant. The island is completely homogeneous in its composition and culture. The language is identical in all parts and constitutes a well-preserved form of Spanish. Puerto Rico is, culturally speaking, a tropical outpost of Spain. It has retained the flavor and mark of the Spanish tradition, with those differences which are inevitable in territories remote from the mother country.
Colonizing nations have become great and have succeeded in their enterprises when they have seized lands abroad for the purpose of peopling them, or when they have guided peoples of less experience toward the achievement of a more complete form of social or political expression. Puerto Rico could never be considered our colony in this sense. It offered no place for the American settler. It was the very opposite of the unoccupied frontier. Puerto Rico in 1898 was a fairly densely inhabited island. The people already possessed the essential attributes of nationality. It was not a primitive people with merely rudimentary notions of government or of politics. On the contrary, with a precocity which astounds the observer, the Puerto Rican people have always had the keenest sense of politics — perhaps almost an exaggerated sense of it. The United States embarked on this original venture in colonialism with no insight into its pitfalls and difficulties.
In 1898 the American government assumed a responsibility for which it was utterly unprepared. It had no colonial office, no personnel equipped to deal with the intricacies of ruling another people, no staff to transfer to the island — nothing, in fact, that is basic in sound colonial administration. But we had an unbounded faith in our own capacity. The program for Puerto Rico was to be that of liberal institutions, democratic government, better standards of living, and participation in the American way of life. It never occurred to us that the Puerto Rican people might not be enthusiastic at the prospect of acquiring the habits, mores, and prejudices of the citizen of Akron or of Ashtabula.
2
FOR three centuries the Puerto Rican people vegetated in a state not far from apathy. The great awakening came after 1808. Puerto Ricans aided in the Cuban rebellion. Abolitionism matured and became a reality. The participation of Puerto Ricans in the deliberations of the Spanish Cortes was active and important. By the end of the century the Spanish government had granted the famous Autonomous Charter which gave Puerto Rico a large number of liberties. Scarcely had it been promulgated when Spain’s war with the United States broke out.
Up to 1799 the population did not reach 200,000. In the next hundred years it had grown to a million. The individual Puerto Rican is distinguished by fortitude, endurance, and resignation. He has a stoical fatalism toward whatever destiny may provide. There are few episodes of rebelliousness in the history of the island. Docility has been a more deep-rooted characteristic.
The story of Puerto Rico is that of a permanently frustrated people. It is the long and often moving story of a Spanish colony which gave great promise but which, with the discovery of Peru and Mexico, became a way station on the road to greater realms. It is the story of a people whose existence through the centuries has been placid, uneventful, and unemotional. It is the story of a relationship established by the United States with no serious attempt to appraise its implications.
This tradition has produced among the two million Puerto Ricans a state of mind which for the want of a better term may be called colonialism. It is a word used constantly in Puerto Rico itself to explain anything that goes wrong. The colonial mind is a dependent mind. It does not come to grips with realities but refers them to Madrid, as was the case for three centuries, or to Washington, as is the case now. It is a mental state which shifts a problem to the authority overseas, simply because that attitude has become ingrained through generation after generation.
Periodically the subject of political status invades the Puerto Rican press and becomes the burning topic of the day. But beyond minor concessions, little that is constructive has come of this agitation. On several occasions the Organic Act, under which Puerto Rico is governed, has been expanded, so to speak, to make way for a more liberal regime. The most notable step in this direction, and one which probably did more than anything else to complicate the island’s future status, was the Jones Act of 1917, making Puerto Ricans citizens of the United States.
This concession immediately posed the fundamental issue of whether or not citizenship was a step toward statehood. The determination last year to allow the election of the governor marks a still further advance in the slow liberalization of the island’s institutions. These, however, are administrative changes which do not clarify the ultimate status of the island. This question underlies almost every other aspect of Puerto Rican life. There are those who insist that education, language, economy, land distribution, and the like all demand more immediate attention than political status. It must be emphasized, however, that the determination of political status is basic to almost everything else. No people can be expected to develop a national life if they are totally subject to the whims and decisions of an authority that is far removed from them and is frequently unconscious of their needs and aspirations. This is the situation of Puerto Rico.
Governor Tugwell has said that the Puerto Rican people are somewhere between independence and territoriality. The island is not a territory in the incorporated sense; it is not a state, or even on the way to statehood; it is not independent. Puerto Rico itself can petition admission to the Union from now until the day of final judgment, and unless Congress hearkens to this appeal, nothing will be done. Puerto Rico can desire independence with all the ardor at its command and with the unanimous support of its two million people, and yet it cannot obtain it unless Congress grants it. And Congress has never expressed itself in tangible terms.
The advocates of statehood insist that the majority of the population want statehood. Perhaps they do. On the other hand, there is an equally respectable sector of the inhabitants who do not see in permanent union with the United States the happiest solution of their difficulties. Puerto Rico itself has never been able to present the united front of the Philippines in this business of independence. Public opinion in terms of political parties has been divided. No plebiscite has ever been held to arrive at any appraisal of the real sentiment of the island, and the question has been allowed to remain as the sore point in public discussion year after year.
3
IF CONFUSION has been rampant because of the inability to define the political status, the chaos in education has been as bad, or worse. There exists in the American mind a peculiar attachment to the idea that culture, advancement, and happiness are in direct proportion to the number of schools set up. The first American administrators in Puerto Rico were aware that the Spanish regime went on a different principle. Our traditional idea that free, public education would wipe out all social ills immediately came to the fore. Schools blossomed forth everywhere in Puerto Rico. In town and in country, in remote rural areas and in the large cities, the public school became an institution. With it came the recruitment of a personnel to transmit the ideas of the American regime. But even the most charitable observer would admit that the result is anything but encouraging.
First of all, what was the new school system supposed to instill? Loyalty to the United States? Well and good, if Puerto Rico was to remain permanently attached to this country. If Puerto Rico was to be independent, was it not more vital to give the school child a grasp of the vernacular language, a sense of civic responsibility, and an appreciation of the geographic and economic factors that surround him? Was it not important above all to giva him a cultural background which was the product of the only culture the island has ever known, the Hispanic? Here, right at the start, the political status of Puerto Rico directly affected the system of education.
There has been much loose talk about combining in the Puerto Rican schools the best elements of Spanish and Anglo-American culture; of making the student bilingual and of giving him an outlook which would fit him equally for a career in the island, in the United States, or in Latin America.
Bilingualism, about which reams of papers have been wasted in Puerto Rico, is merely a theory — and not a very good theory. No people anywhere is bilingual in the complete sense of the word. No nationality has grown up with the knowledge acquired from childhood of two languages. None of the Puerto Ricans speak English habitually or as the mother tongue. English is an alien and foreign thing, with no local roots and no tradition. To bring about its diffusion, it has been necessary to make it the official vehicle of expression and decree its use in the schools.
The partisans of English have tended to use it as the measuring rod of patriotism and loyalty to the United States. Practically every incoming Commissioner of Public Instruction has seen fit to change the system of his predecessor and modify the language organization. There was a time when the use of English began in the lower grades and increased on the way up. There was a time when the child was suddenly thrown into contact with English for the purpose of learning arithmetic, geography, and the like. Like a sliding scale, the year of schooling in which English study began fluctuated, as did the year in which English was the exclusive instrument of expression. One Commissioner, Dr. José Padín, did what should have been done long before and instituted the vernacular as the instrument of instruction in the grade schools. English became an obligatory subject, but not the main language employed in teaching other subjects. This reform, which was logical, intelligent, and within the experience of the country, produced a storm of protest and with it the usual accusations of anti-Americanism.
It is a strange commentary on American rule that the insistence on English as the language of the school system should be taken as evidence of devotion to the United States. The claim that Puerto Ricans cannot be good Americans unless they struggle with English in the second grade is sheer poppycock. Knowledge of the English language, like knowledge of anything else, depends on utility. To the vast majority of Puerto Ricans, English is almost useless. Most of them rarely get beyond the early grades before they return to the fields. English is infinitely less important than hygiene, manual arts, and the like.
Among the more privileged classes, English has never been more than an academic language, save in the few cases of those who have studied in the United States. To many Puerto Ricans English has become the symbol of alien rule, of outside pressure, and of the institutions of a country with which many do not sympathize. Antagonism to the English language, not as an instrument of culture, but as an instrument of immediate policy, has always been widespread.
4
AMERICAN rule in the field of education has produced some serious and deleterious results. It has developed a wider spread of education, to be sure, but culture has lost immeasurably in depth and profundity. It is significant that one of the first acts of the American administration after the occupation was to cancel all grants by the state for cultural or artistic purposes.
The cultural tradition of a people as expressed in their language, art, music, and folkways is too fundamental a part, of their make-up to be tampered with lightly. An authority which seeks to make over an entire people does irreparable injury to their cultural resources. American educational methods have not produced a renaissance of culture or anything like it. I would say that there is probably less actual culture in the best sense of the word in the island today than a hundred years ago. There are now no figures comparable to those Puerto Rico was rightly proud of in the past century: Hostos, Matienzo, Betances, Baldorioty, Ruíz Belvis, and Brau. This crusade for the implantation of English has affected particularly the middle class, which is probably the most disorientated of all.
The mentality that has grown out of this state of affairs is difficult to analyze. Puerto Rico lives in a state of conflict. There is an exuberant pro-Americanism, manifested in numerous curious ways. This was exaggerated, perhaps, in the case of the member of the Puerto Rican Legislature who appeared before a Congressional committee and, in order to affirm his complete devotion to the institutions of the United States, delivered himself of a panegyric of the English language, culminating in the vigorous assertion that he himself, as a man of the world and as a patriot, always made love in the English language. This travesty of Americanism provokes on the other side an intense and vitriolic antiAmericanism. But the truth is that the number of bitter Yankee-baiters is extremely small. The Puerto Rican people possess the redeeming virtue of an excellent sense of humor, and much of this elownisfmess is passed off for what it is.
Puerto Rico, it must be remembered, is an island and, as an island, suffers from various forms of insularity. The exaggerated pro-Americanism of some Puerto Ricans is perhaps only an unwitting effort to overcome this isolation by a stronger attachment to the United States. Others seek the renewal of Puerto Rican cultural life in the constant reaffirmation of their Hispanism. Yet among many of these there is a curious reluctance to seek closer attachments with the Spanish-speaking republics of America. I have heard otherwise intelligent Puerto Ricans, whose idea of the world ought to preclude such comment, speak in the most disparaging terms of “turbulent Cuba,” “revolutionary Mexico,” and “ backward Haiti.” Instead of expressing that kinship which one would suppose would tie Puerto Rico to her sister nations of Latin America, the island has remained aloof. This, one hopes, is not necessarily the result of the American educational system.
5
FROM the sixteenth century on, Puerto Rico has been subject to the trials and tribulations of an uncertain economy. Her early history was full of hurricanes, earthquakes, and piratical depredations. Her first settlers migrated to the mainland in search of better fortunes. For years the Spanish regime kept Puerto Rico alive with periodic assistance from Mexico.
When the American regime was established, the island was a modest agricultural colony, without great enterprise and without great prospects. The new regime naturally forced Puerto Rico to shift her commerce and trade from Spain to the United States. And, one must confess in all honesty, the laws and regulations governing this trade were inspired by the interests of continental United States rather than by those of Puerto Rico. The island was restricted in relations with the other Caribbean islands by the tariff and coastwise shipping laws of the United States. In other words, Puerto Rico was able to deal only with the American market. No matter what the prices or the availability of goods, artificial as well as natural barriers cut her off completely from the rest of the world.
In an instructive little book published some years ago, entitled Porto Rico: A Broken Pledge, Bailey and Josephine Diffie presented the not very pretty picture of the expansion of American capital in this island. They described with abundant detail the character, extent, and results of the capitalistic razzia which, in the space of a few years, did away with the small property holder and created the great corporative enterprise which exists today.
It may be true, as some maintain, that from the point of view of the welfare of all the people the
present sugar economy is the best. It may be that the profits from sugar are such that only through its exploitation on a large scale can a small island expect to derive the income necessary for the construction of roads, the building of schools, and the like. The tragedy is that the combined sugar, tobacco, and coffee industries of Puerto Rico are today insufficient, to give employment to more than half of the island’s workers.
Herein lies the explanation of the enormous sums that have been expended on public works under the various relief administrations which have been set up. It has been argued that the United States cannot continue such an expenditure, that Puerto Rico herself cannot expend unprecedented amounts for straight relief. Governor Tugwell has answered this point. Would the United States prefer to expend lavishly to keep down a hungry, unruly, and rebellious population? Is it not preferable to maintain the island economy rather than to risk a social and economic breakdown in the midst of the war? The answer appears to be obvious.
In the elections of 1940 a new political element in Puerto Rico came into power, under the name of the Popular Party. The leader is an intelligent and audacious Puerto Rican, Luis Muñoz Marín. With no political machinery and little cash, the ingenuity and capacity of Muñoz Marín led to a triumph at the polls and the establishment of the new party as a majority. The social program of this party looks toward numerous drastic changes in the economic structure of the island. The redistribution of lands, the application of the 500-acre law which is in the Organic Act but which was never put into effect, and the increase of state control over industry and enterprise constitute salient features of the program. The cry of state socialism has of course been raised against it. Members of the party reply that private enterprise has thus far failed to solve the pressing problems.
An economic policy of exclusivism; an unconcern for the problem of land, which in all the West Indian islands is a matter of supreme importance; and a steadily mounting dependence on the United States for indispensable imports — all these factors have combined to create a situation which makes the solution of Puerto Rico’s purely political problem exceedingly difficult.
There are Americans who urge eventual complete independence — the severing of all ties with the United States and the establishment of the republic. This is unquestionably a very small minority. It is annoying to find in testimony before Congressional hearings, and in the press comment, constant talk about “preparing” the people of Puerto Rico for something or other. The Puerto Ricans are just as able to manage the apparatus of self-government as are the people of Arkansas, Nevada, or South Carolina — perhaps more so. They certainly have as good a tradition of cohesiveness and a greater community of experience.
Independence, in the sense that some of its partisans understand it, is fast becoming more and more unreal. Partial independence for small peoples is probably the maximum that will be feasible after the holocaust. Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, the nations of Central America, and many others enjoy independence with reference to domestic matters. They do not have the same measure of independence in their international relations — and this is increasingly true the world over. Thanks to the present doctrine of the Good Neighbor, the small nations of this hemisphere have nothing to fear in terms of intervention or occupation; it is equally clear that their international policy must be in line with that of the United States.
A degree of political independence is entirely feasible. Economic independence is less probable, and complete international independence in all probability impossible.
The enormous constructions undertaken by the United States to make Puerto Rico a greal and powerful naval and military base preclude, of course, any talk of independence during the war. it is problematical how far the United States will go, after the war, to relinquish these holdings on an island so strategically situated at the entrance of the Caribbean. If the United States insists on maintaining its full military strength on the island, and keeps the bases recently constructed as a permanent source of defense, independence is still less thinkable. Conceivably, of course, the island could become independent and allow American forces to remain in it, as in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
It would seem, however, that one can eliminate independence as a solution — unless it be independence along dominion lines with complete selfgovernment at home and the broad direction of international affairs in Washington. Not much has been said of such a status, simply because no one can find a precedent in American practice to follow. It should not be impossible to work out a scheme whereby Puerto Rico could be granted outright the fullest control over its internal affairs with a minimum of intervention in its foreign affairs.
The partisans of statehood argue that the island has been under American rule for forty-five years; the English language is fairly well known among the people; they are familiar with American institutions and American political practice; and it is high time to admit Puerto Rico to full fellowship in the Union. Some of the advocates argue further that not to admit Puerto Rico constitutes a serious reflection on American methods and a reluctance to keep faith with a loyal people.
Let us examine the brief on behalf of statehood. There is no evidence whatever that Congress intends or desires to consider the admission of Puerto Rico as a state. Only Congress can take such a step. It has not done so in the case of Hawaii or Alaska. The United States has never admitted a noncontiguous, non-English-speaking territory to the Union. It would be well to consider whether, if Puerto Rico were admitted to the Union, it would be desirable to have one state of the nation in which another culture, another language, and another mode of life predominate. From the point of view of Puerto Rico, the cultural disruption that would ensue might be far more dangerous than that which has taken place to date.
There is no need to argue further the strictly economic factors involved. As a state, Puerto Rico would lose the present income from customs duties, which now go to the insular treasury and would then go to the Federal. One point that docs come to mind is whether the Congress of the United States would look with pleasure on the presence of two more Senators and perhaps a dozen Representatives from this newly admitted state. There is the matter of party affiliation, for one thing.
Puerto Rico has lost much confidence in herself. The real problem of the island, aside from the material one, is a moral one: the recapture of a sense of destiny. Puerto Rico must rediscover herself. The long American administration has not done much to aid in this quest. The Puerto Rican people, disheartened, discouraged, and shunted about, have received so much buffeting that their faith in their own potentialities has been shaken to the depths. Are we willing to translate into action what we say we are fighting for in this war? Puerto Rico will be a proving ground of our good faith.