On July 25, 1898, U.S. forces disembarked in Guánica, in the south-west of Puerto Rico as the Spanish-Cuban-American War developed. The acquisition of the island was to provide the United States with desired raw materials (sugar, tobacco), as well as with new colonial markets for American[1] products. It also provided a strategic location to establish military bases to supply their merchant and military ships, and to protect the projected Panama Canal. The United States acquired Puerto Rico under a new status: an unincorporated territory, the colonial status that the Island still has. Puerto Ricans, up to this day, became subject to the plenary powers of the U.S. Congress. The prophecy of Puerto Rican patriot Ramón Emeterio Betances was fulfilled: “If Puerto Rico does not act fast, it will forever be a United States colony.”[2]
The acquisition of Puerto Rico as a colony in 1898 prompted the interest of a variety of sectors of the United States (military personnel, news correspondents, wealthy investors, missionaries, politicians, scientists, potential tourists) who wanted to know more about Puerto Rico and its inhabitants, and about their potential utility for them. Some of them visited the Island and then wrote about their experiences while there for the benefit of others who planned to visit in the future. These writings provide a fascinating opportunity to see ourselves, the colonized, as if in a mirror, although a distorted one, through the eyes of foreigners. They can also help both American and Puerto Rican readers to better understand how American colonialism has pervaded American-Puerto Rican relationships from their onset. Since the selected authors were writing for other Americans, with their books they helped create a general American opinion regarding their new “subjects”. Accurate or not, these books contained perceptions of Puerto Ricans and their world that became the “general knowledge” about us in the United States.
Colonialism Permeates All
The colonized will never be accepted as an equal by the colonizer, and if he tries to be treated as one, the colonizer will consider that either disrespectful or simply foolish, an object of ridicule. Everything Puerto Ricans did was incompetently performed, unless done “the American way”:
Everything on the island is done in the wrong way, and in order to do anything right it must be done wrong, as contradictory as this statement seems. To move forward is to move backward, but the Porto Rican boatman rows with his face towards the bow, as he says, to see where he is going. Articles that we would carry in baskets or boxes are here moved in bags, and vice versa. The Porto Rican gentleman beckons with the same movement we should use to drive a person away. …in their style of architecture… [houses] are constructed so that the front of the house faces the alley, at what we should call the rear, and the backside fronts the streets.[3]
Very frequently, American authors infantilized Puerto Ricans. This is very common in colonizer-colonized relationship. If the colonized is a child in the eyes of the colonizer, he/she will always need the guidance and control of the colonizer, since children cannot take care of themselves:
Great numbers of the Porto Ricans gave one the impression that they were simply grown up children, with all a child’s natural affection and trust, and it always seemed to The Corporal that we had assumed a great responsibility…[4]
This inequality between colonizers and colonized, Americans and Puerto Ricans, inherently contained a superiority and an inferiority. Several American soldiers emphasized the submissive attitudes of the Puerto Ricans they met as they moved from town to town:
[At the Plaza of Guayama] …Men cheered and women cried; children ran like wild creatures, shouting as loud as their little throats would permit, “Vivan los Americanos.” …They kissed the hands of their deliverers and fell at their feet to worship them.[5]
Dehumanization of the Puerto Rican colonized was also very common. Several American writers, clearly visualizing Puerto Ricans of the lower classes as less-than-human beings, compared them, their surroundings, and their actions to those of animals. This is a common phenomenon of colonialism pointed out by Albert Memmi: “The extraordinary efficiency of this operation is obvious. One does not have a serious obligation toward an animal…”[6] Here are some examples:
…the children naked, and their parents in rags squatting like apes in the front of the shack. … Men or women followed by children creep out in the morning and hunt their breakfast of bananas or fruit just as a pig will hunt its breakfast of acorns.[7]
…the dwelling places of the peons are as bare of furniture and the common conveniences and comforts of life as the stables in which an American farmer shelters his horses. …The masses … were ignorant and debased, and lived with less comfort than the domestic animals on an American farm. …at night they bunched together like shivering pigs on the dirt floors of their miserable hovels, without beds or covering…[8]
[A group of soldiers made hungry kids do “stunts” in exchange for discarded morsels and hardtacks, as if they were dogs:] They overran the camp like a lot of flies on a piece of fly-paper as soon as we commenced to eat. We hugely enjoyed the stunts we made them go through with before we gave them a single morsel… the man … held a hardtack temptingly in mid air.[9]
A sense of inferiority and self-incompetence are, therefore, to be expected in a colonized person. This submission or servility has been identified by Memmi as part of what is called the “colonized personality”. The last American governor of Puerto Rico, Rexford G. Tugwell, deeply reflected on American colonialism and how it prevented Puerto Ricans from living healthy and prosperous lives:
…the lowly folk of all sorts … felt that they were not getting anywhere under American rule except into deeper trouble. …They desperately wanted… just more to eat and more fun. Even I, a casual and official visitor, carefully shown around by the insular elite, discovered that. And it was a disturbing discovery, so deep, so powerful, and so bitter it seemed. What was the colonialism which produced this resentment and distrust? No Governor was responsible, though any Governor might seem to personify it… It was the system. How many Americans any more are quite clear in their minds what their Revolution was about? Have they forgot the meaning of «taxation without representation»?[10]
The Onset of the Unequal Relationship
In July, 1898, aside for the Spanish-born minority and its loyalists, most inhabitants had great expectations from the invasion. The Puerto Rican elites expected to grow their business through American markets and investors, and to increase the level of autonomy recently conceded by Spain. The rest of the population wanted to be liberated from the oppression of those same local elites that exploited them every day in their haciendas. Indeed, an American author noticed that after the Spanish surrender, many Puerto Ricans shouted their expectations clearly: “…the people were wild with joy, and as they danced in glee at their emancipation from Spanish thralldom, they shouted: “¡Viva los Americanos! ¡Viva Puerto Rico libre!”[11]
On their part, American soldiers were dumbfounded as they witnessed a war turning into a big celebration, and some openly joked about it:
At Yauco the enthusiasm of the Porto Ricans was even more marked than at Ponce. …the citizens greeted the soldiers with as much enthusiasm as if they had been men of their own blood returning from victory over a common enemy. All day the bands played in the public square, the balconies were filled with people, and dancing with the soldiers was the popular amusement of the Porto Rican belles. At night the town was illuminated, and half a dozen receptions were given.[12]
We can only imagine the experience of these young American soldiers, many probably of humble origins having, all of a sudden, the opportunity to feel like rulers:
[In Yauco:] The citizens of the town hugged the Americans, and some fell upon their knees and embraced the legs of the soldiers. It was a most remarkable spectacle.[13]
…soon we were on the right side of the natives and had a small army of kids to fetch milk and eggs. All one had to do was to yell “Tokio” or “Teodor” or whatever the name of his special kid, and the milk or eggs would be ready for breakfast. …we lived high in our town of Aibonio, and were monarchs on all we surveyed.[14]
But their reception was not always that joyful. Occasionally, the troops committed excesses that changed the whole tone of the arrival of the U.S. Army into town, and there was a sense of distrust emanating from some American soldiers who couldn’t believe the generosity shown by Puerto Ricans could be sincere:
The reception of the Americans in Coamo was not as cordial…. Many of the people were on the streets and some shouted welcomes, but there was a much greater reserve than in places previously occupied. This was due, in great measure, to the misbehavior of some of the American soldiers who first entered the town. Some of them went into the stores and eating houses, seized what they wanted, and went off without paying for it. The result was that the stores soon closed, and it was not possible for anyone to buy a thing to eat. …the officers could not be identified. [March (1899), 429]
The elite classes, mostly of Spanish origin, were not enthusiastic at all about the U.S. invasion, as revealed by the following notation. Sometimes the American troops responded to the local elite’s derision with violent attitudes:
Others shouted the “Americano was mucha Bueno”, but we noticed that the better class eyed us with stolid indifference, or frowned on us, but they, the well dressed, were so few and far between…. …Most of their houses were tightly closed and not a sign of life within or without, with a few exceptions, and the ultra-swell citizens looked down at us disdainfully, just as if to say –“Pouff, Yankee pigs, begone!” …This anti-American feeling on the part of the better class was so unexpected and so entirely in contrast to our San German conquest that we were nonplussed for the moment…. These young ladies only laughed derisively at our salutations or glared scornfully down at us. Our tattered appearance… doubtlessly caused their ridicule, mingled with the feelings too, perhaps, that we were usurpers.[15]
Getting Acquainted
American civilians who visited the Island right after the U.S. invasion, for the most part supported American imperialism in full, sharing the self-image of “saviors” of Puerto Ricans. Even though they were about to impose a new, modern, capitalist yoke, an American author referred to Puerto Ricans as “the people from whose shoulders we have lifted the yoke”.[16]
American soldiers noted how the attitudes turned colder as Puerto Ricans realized that they will stay after the invasion. The imperialistic tone is evident in their recollections:
That this [their enthusiastic reception] was only ephemeral was shown after a few weeks, by the diminution of respect felt and shown the Americans, when the novelty of the situation had worn away and they began to discover that the Americans were not there to entertain them or to enable them to spend the rest of their days in idleness, good-natured though they be. …“Americano mucho Bueno” is pleasant but cheap, and “Americano” will become to the populace “mucho malo” just so soon as Uncle Sam sits down to stay.[17]
The violent behaviors and imperialistic attitudes of the American soldiers were commented on here and there, but were dismissed by them as actions that would be source of laugh in the United States and that were overblown by “serious-minded Puerto Ricans”:
In spite of the general good behavior of our soldiers there are some lamentable incidents of rowdyism. They were due entirely to the fun-loving disposition of our volunteers, and were not intended to be disrespectful or hurtful. At home they would have been dismissed with a smile or a laugh, as belonging to the ordinary run of camp life and the ebullient spirits of “young America”. But they were viewed in a different light by the serious-minded Porto Ricans.[18]
“An Ideal Winter Resort”: The Future
The vision of Puerto Rico as a future winter resort for Americans’ enjoyment was in the mind of several authors since the very beginning of colonialism in the Island. Unfortunately, this was resurrected around 2008 when the federal and colonial governments began to take steps towards turning Puerto Rico into a sort of “American Bahamas”[19], a winter resort for the rest and entertainment of the rich, a plan that aligned perfectly with the dreams of these early American writers:
Puerto Rico will, in a few years, be an ideal winter resort. The island is now a paradise, and when American customs, capital and cookery are introduced, and large hotels erected, it will be flooded with tourists. Just as the Bahamas are crowded every year so will Puerto Rico be a haven of rest for those who desire quietness and ideal scenery.[20]
After the first years of contact, the relationship between Puerto Ricans and Americans began to be looked upon as “difficult” and hostile. A few American authors attributed this to some Americans who have been known by the term “ugly Americans” in reference to Americans living in foreign countries “whose behavior is offensive to the people of that country”[21]:
One hears a great deal about the ill-feeling of the natives against Americans. …many of the officials we have sent out to Porto Rico have been men of little principle or ignorant, prejudiced, dissipated, or in other ways a disgrace to their country and their flag, and totally unfit to handle local conditions or affairs.[22]
What Can We Learn from the Colonizers´ Viewpoint?
The white colonizer retains forever a colonial privilege; on the other hand, the non-white colonized is condemned to daily humiliations in this subordinated relationship in which: “Even the poorest colonizer thought himself to be –and actually was– superior to the colonized… …he needs only show his face to be prejudged favorably… the colonized… have more faith in his word than in that of their own population. …Even his dress, his accent and his manners are eventually imitated by the colonized.”[23]
Frantz Fanon once suggested that the effect that colonialism consciously pursued was “to drive in the natives’ heads the idea that if the settlers were to leave, they would at once fall back into barbarism, degradation, and bestiality”.[24] Under this premise, many wounds have been inflicted on our people. The study of American representations about Puerto Ricans and their culture provides a template from which we can identify those foreign conceptions of ourselves that are not based on a deep understanding of our culture, but instead are just intended to keep imposing on us a low self-esteem and a psychological dependency that allows the empire to control our behavior and secure our support of colonialism.
END
REFERENCES
[1] I will use the term “American” to refer to people from the United States of America. The term is incorrect, since “American” should refer to the natives of all the Americas: North, South and Central America as well as the Caribbean islands. But even though in Spanish we can call them “estadounidenses”, in the English language there is no other reasonable way to refer to them. [2] Rivero, Ángel (1998), Crónica de la Guerra Hispanoamericana en Puerto Rico, Río Piedras: Editorial Edil, 19. [3] Browne, Waldo G. and Nathan H. Dole (1907), The New America and the Far East, Vol. VIII, Boston: Marshall Jones Co., 1398. [4] Rossiter, Emanuel (1900?), Right, Forward, Fours Right, March! A Little Story of Company I, No place: no publisher. [5] Creager, Charles (1899), The Fourteenth Ohio National Guard, Ohio: The Landon Printing & Publishing Co., 156-7. [6] Memmi (1965), 86. [7] Edwards, Frank (1899), The ’98 Campaign of the 6th Massachusetts, U.S.V., Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 250. [8] Olivares, José de (1899), Our Islands and Their People as seen with Camera and Pencil, Vol. I, St. Louis: N. D. Thompson Publishing Co., 302, 332. [9] Oliver, William H. (1900), Roughing It with the Regulars, New York: William F. Parr Printer, 200. [10] Tugwell, Rexford G. (1947), The Stricken Land. The Story of Puerto Rico, New York: Doubleday & Co. Inc., 40-1. [11] Browne and Dole (1907), 1460. [12] March, Alden (1899), The History and Conquest of the Philippines and Our Other Island Possessions, Philadelphia: WM. E. Scull, 425-6. [13] Hall, Arthur D. (1898), Porto Rico: Its History, Products and Possibilities, New York: Street & Smith. [14] Rossiter (1900?). [15] Oliver (1901), 98, 122-3. [16] Rector, Charles H. (1898), The Story of Beautiful Porto Rico, Chicago: Laird & Lee Publishers, 184. [17] Edwards (1899), 110-1. [18] Olivares, Vol. 1 (1899), 358. [19] Facing a financial crisis with a billionaire debt, the colonial government in Puerto Rico decided to raise the taxes paid by Puerto Ricans while offering American and other foreign multimillionaires (through Act #20 of 2012) a guarantee of no capital gains taxes and a mere 4% tax rate on their businesses, as long as they moved to the Island with their investments and committed to create jobs in the Island. This, in effect, has been named a “visitor economy” where rich foreigners come to spend their winters at Puerto Rico living in “five-star resort lifestyle...fully privatized enclaves...” Klein, Naomi (March 20, 2018), «Puerto Ricans and Ultrarich ‘Puertopians’ Are Locked in a Pitched Struggle Over How to Remake the Island» The Intercept. [20] Oliver (1900), 214. [21] As defined in the Merriam-Webster.Com Dictionary. The term was popularized after the publishing in 1958 of a collection of stories: The Ugly American by Eugene Burdick and William J. Lederer. [22] Verrill, A. Hyatt (1914), Porto Rico Past and Present and San Domingo of Today, New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 136-7. [23] Memmi (1965), xii, 11-13. [24] Fanon, Franz (1963), The Wretched of the Earth, New York: Grove Press, 210.
