[Suki]

I have always thought Sidney Mintz (a cultural Anthropologist) did a very good job of defining Puerto Rico and the Puerto Ricans. Another person who lived in Puerto Rico for many decades and was an American from the mainland and who in his preface for his book "Puerto Rico Mio" and to me captured the very essence of the Puerto Rican ethos was Jack Delano. Look up his preface. It really says in very few words what makes us 'different' and any Puerto Rican that reads that and doesn't think what he says is the truth---isn't really much of a Puerto Rican. Instead, they are some type of hyphenated American who want desperately to be 'generic'. We all know who they are.

If one wants to know the contradictions of living in Puerto Rico and how native Puerto Ricans see themselves Rosario Ferre's literature combined with Jose Luis Gonzalez' "El Pais de Cuatro Pisos" sums it up very well Stanley.

Puerto Ricans are human beings first and foremost. They are Latin Americans. That is valid to say that. They don't speak English natively if they are born and raised on the island of Puerto Rico. That alone makes them different than the majority of people in the USA. Also, all Puerto Ricans are Americans. We are. We are and were Americans before the thirteen colonies were formed in the United States of America. So we are more genuinely and truly a product of the American Experience than the so called Mayflower Pilgrims. I think it is important to emphasize that. These are the AMERICAS. Plural "The Americas" not the singular "America". It is important to understand that as well. We are a diverse and mestizo group of people. A typical American mixture, and yet distinctly Puerto Rican, and distinctly Latin American, and distinctly Caribbean, and distinctly 'Boricua'. Lol. Is Stanley satisfied?

Those who think drinking Coca-Cola, wearing baseball caps and being associated with the USA for over one hundred years has altered our status from Latin Americans to generic 'Americans' are completely incompetent in ethnography and in knowing the differences between economic markers or classifiers and what is known in sociology as 'deep culture' vs. acculturation or adaptation to external influence. There is a profound difference. Japan for example has been profoundly changed by the Western influences over its long history in the last 70 years. But has the Japanese ethos really been transformed in the base (in its thought processes and in its essential components?) The short answer is "NO". When a culture is altered and assimilated it has key characteristics. If anyone is interested in what those are I will gladly describe it to them.

I love to use the linguistic analogy. English comes from German. Spanish comes from the Romance language group of languages. Rome. The Ancient Empire. All Romance languages have a pattern of syntax. If the syntax changes in a language, then the language is fundamentally altered, and basically that language becomes 'assimilated' and or disappears from the scene such as "Dalmata" or "Dalmatian" a dead Romance language, once that happens it is gone. Germanic languages all follow a syntactic structure (English follows this German pattern and so it is considered and classified as a Germanic language). Regardless of lexicon, and foreign word influences. English is very different from German. But it keeps the syntax at its core. Spanish keeps the Roman pattern at its core. Culture is very similar to linguistic comparisons and analysis. I suggest people see what it means in an essential way.

The short of it is that Puerto Ricans have been acculturated by the USA but not assimilated. As such, they are considered in every classification known in both sociology and anthropology and also in Ethnography as fitting the pattern of national identity. They occupy a landbase that is continual, they have a national history that is shared, they have a set of what are called cultural markers and shared value systems, and they follow a pattern of deep culture (this is the key folks), that is not of the metropolis. That is what makes us not assimilated. Not the economy, not the colonial state, not the 'race' or the look or the politic infighting. None of that crap counts. The other stuff does. I wonder if Stanley is satisfied with my non-Folkloric analysis? Hmmm. Ay BENDITO!