You may have seen some political cartoons where the US territory we all know as Puerto Rico was referred to as “Porto Rico” and wondered why. Well, despite how random it may seem, there is a distinct reason why it was called this for 34 years of American history.
The United States first came into major contact with Puerto Rico after the conclusion of the Spanish American war. As part of the mission of imperialism, Americans arrived on the island in 1898 in hopes of “educating” and “bringing up” the Puerto Ricans, who were considered more wild and unkempt than the “civilized” Americans. As a first step, the Americans wanted to make a demonstration that Puerto Rico was no longer a territory of Spain; it now belonged to the US. In a dispute that involved both the media and public opinion, the country argued about whether to allow the island to keep its name, or change it to something more suitable to the United States. In the end, President McKinley decided that “Porto Rico” was the better name for the island, and the country officially anglicized the island’s name. Gone was Puerto Rico’s history of Spanish influence and culture as “The Rich Port”; it would now be called “Porto Rico”.
Along with the change of name, missionaries, business leaders, and others travelled to the island, trying to absorb the Puerto Ricans into American life and culture and adapt them to “the ways of the WASP”. From 1900-1910, the US passed laws allowing it to supervise the “Porto Rican” affairs and economy, causing the “Porto Ricans” to send ambassadors in 1915 requesting an increase in their autonomy, which was denied.
Throughout all this time, the “Porto Ricans” were still considered less civilized than the Americans, and with each restriction and controlling jurisdiction that the US passed, the US felt they were doing more to help improve the lives of the “Porto Ricans” and assimilate them to American culture.
Eventually, 34 years after the occupation of Puerto Rico, due to the high amounts of requests from Puerto Ricans over the years, the US passed a clause in Title 48 deeming that from May 17, 1932 onwards, the name of the island would be "Puerto Rico" again, giving the Puerto Ricans back a little bit of their cultural freedom.
I thought this was a really great explanation to a seemingly ridiculous label on a map. Although we saw this in class, we never truly discussed why this was. I left with the impression that the cause was ignorance rather than a legitimate change made and decided by the president. The post includes details about how this change came to be and how it was corrected in Title 48, 1932, 34 years later. A piece of information that would have been insightful would have been who was in support of this transformation as well as what was the significance of the change. Overall a relevant and informative post about the nationalistic movement that swept through America.
ReplyDeleteI remember the way Mr Stewart said it and thought it was funny but it is interesting the way you put it by saying, making it porto rico their culture is gone. We don't always realize how important names are to people and just the simple changing of one can make some people pretty mad.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Keren. What group of people were in support of President McKinley's decision? I wonder if this could be connected with liberal versus conservative ideologies or perhaps the idea of progressivism that we have done in depth discussions on in class. Would the fact of President McKinley being a part of the Republican party be of importance?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.whitehouse.gov/1600/presidents/williammckinley
Thanks for sharing, Kenneth. I think this definitely connects to the ideas of Social Darwinism and those expressed in Rudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden". I think that a lot of this name change stems from the idea that Americans are superior, and therefore, they were doing a service to Puerto Ricans by "integrating". Though today we see this as racist, in that time, most people truly believed that they were helping Puerto Ricans rather than hurting them. I too thought that the name "misspelling" was just out of ignorance, rather than a purposeful erasure of Spanish and Puerto Rican culture. Thanks for educating us otherwise.
ReplyDeleteThe place name Porto Rico was coined in Spanish (under no English or other non-Spanish influence) by no later than 1562 and is attested in native Spanish from that year until our times.
ReplyDeleteDetails here:
Gold, David L. 2012. "The Politicization of a Monophthong: A Refutation of All the Puerto Rican Myths About the Native Spanish Place Name Porto Rico." In Estudios de lingüística española: Homenaje a Manuel Seco. Félix Rodríguez González, ed. Alicante. Publicaciones de la Universidad de Alicante. Pp. 215-268 (with a summary in Spanish).