Refection 3: Puerto Ricans: From Colonized People to Political Activists

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Refection 3: Puerto Ricans: From Colonized People to Political Activists
Puerto Rico is known as the last colonial rulers in the new world. This is because it was adjacent to the United States and had a significant tie with the U.S. before the Spanish-American war. The war and the U.S occupation of the Puerto Rico have had a significant effect on the citizens of Puero Rico in the U.S in terms of their presence in the United States and their politics. Puerto Rico’s indigenous community was Tainos who lived across of the Caribbean and after the Spanish conquest, a lot of the Tainos were killed following the disease and the mistreatments that they received from the Americans. However, their legacy still remains as one of the Puerto Rican’s history and their identity. Puerto Rico was an island that was maned “Boriquen” and the Puerto Ricans and the people in the united states had to refer it as “Boricua”. The ending of the Tainos changed the demography of the Puerto Ricans and created a need to import many Africans as slaves to offer labor and grow the Puerto Rica’s economy. This means that the Puerto Rican’s are European and Africans as told by Juan Martinez Cruzado, a geneticist that did a DNA survey and discovered that most of the Puerto Ricans have a correlation with the Indians. In the survey, Cruzado found that there are 27% of Africans and 12 % Caucasians (Bedolla 104). This means that the island’s heritage and indigenous practices still remain a critical function in the Puerto Rican culture. Up until the mid of the 19th century, Puerto Rica depended on sugar majorly centered on the coasta...