Por y Para Mi Gente: Puerto Rico-US Relations (Meditation 1)

Preface

Since starting this blog (May 2020), I’ve avoided writing on Puerto Rico, mi isla y mi gente. The reasons are many, but an important one is that writing on Puerto Rico hurts. I’m a member of the Puerto Rican diaspora, born to an Anglo mother and a deeply, though not fully, assimilated Puerto Rican father who never taught me Spanish. The island and its people, then, are and are not mine; its and their language is not mine, even if some forms of Spanish are. Consequently, writing on Puerto Rico requires I confront a painful truth: I do and do not belong to the Island and people I love.

Writing on Puerto Rico also requires my confronting the truth that mi gente y yo suffer under Anglo White supremacy. All Puerto Ricans, whether on the Island or scattered across the globe, bear the historic burdens of Anglo expansionism and exploitation, and their continuing effects.

Noting these painful truths, let me explain what I’m doing. Over the next several blogposts, I’ll discuss the documents of barbarism that solidified Puerto Rico’s standing as a US colony from 1898 to present (As Jóse Trías Monge writes, Puerto is the “oldest colony” in the world). Treating these texts is part of my personal reckoning with quienes somos mi gente y yo.

Backdrop

At end of the Spanish-US War of 1898, about one million Puerto Ricans came under the jurisdiction of the United States. It’s important to remember that this war did not start in Puerto Rico; it started in Cuba. But US politicians worked to ensure that the war continued until the US military had seized Puerto Rico and expelled Spain from the island. In May 1898, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt wrote to Senator Henry Cabot Lodge saying, “Give my best love to Nannie, and do not make peace until we get Porto Rico.” Lodge responded: “Porto Rico is not forgotten and we mean to have it. Unless I am utterly . . . mistaken, the administration is now fully committed to the large policy that we both desire.” Roosevelt and Lodge, of course, were champions of the global expansion of Anglo-Saxon white supremacy, and they and much of the US Federal Government intended to bring Puerto Rico under their racist regime.

Puerto Ricans were aware that the US posed a threat to their well-being before the US invaded them. Consider the following excerpt from La Deomcracia, 1894, No. 1030.

The American nation is a dangerous neighbor, especially for Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. We must trust very little in her statements. We must not fall asleep, and must keep watchful eyes on the Florida Channel. Anglo-American traditions are not the most reassuring.

There you have Mexico, invaded and dismembered, due to the greed of the Colossus. There you have Nicaragua, where they arrived one day, stirring troubles and difficulties. The North American Republic is too powerful to relax her pressure on the weak Latin American Republics.

On the alert, then…The United States urgently needs to establish a position in the Antilles. In 1891, they talked and acted in this direction, without beating about the bush.

The US certainly did want territories in the Antilles, and for several reasons. I’ll mention two.

First, these positions would provide military control over the Gulf of Mexico and the Panama canal. Second, they’d offer numerous business opportunities and expanded markets when the US was experiencing major economic challenges.

Roosevelt eventually resigned his post and joined Colonel Leonard Wood’s First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry. This group eventually became known as the Rough Riders. Upon Wood’s promotion, Roosevelt took command of the Rough Riders, and on July 1 he led the right wing of the attack on San Juan Hill. Roosevelt carried out part of the expansionist mission he’d asked Senator Lodge to ensure happened. Five months later, both men watched Puerto Rico become a US colony with the singing of The Treaty of Paris (1898).

I’ll consider that Treaty in the next post.