Elitism?

[L_F_Miranda]

Stanley brought up the issue of elitism among Independentistas. This has been a critique of the PIP since day one. In fact elitism is not the monopoly of just independentistas, its of anyone who has, "dos dedos de frente" and of those giving opinions that do not agree with what the majority believes.

But what more elitists than Statehooders! The difference with independentistas is that statehooders are interested in another kind of elitism, better known as "Come Mierdería."

They are the ones who are openly class and race oriented, making up the majority of members of the Lions and Rotary clubs around the island.
They were the members of the Casino de Puerto Rico, the ones highly addicted to "Reinados" MMMMMMMMM, maybe making up for their lower class back grounds but still wanting to be from the nobility. LOL

Ironically El Casino de Puerto Rico was founded by those that were denied entry into La Casa de España back in the 30's. Why? they couldn't find any Spanish ancestors in their family history. I guess African ancestors was not deemed appropriate. LOL

Who are these "come mierda" elitists? They are the Fonalledas of Plaza Las Americas, The Ferré's of Ponce, the Barcelo's, Rosselló's etc. etc. Most have done well with the colonial system, in fact they administer the colony economically. Most are white, or "look white", and would fight tooth and nail to conceal any African ancestory.

Different from the Ferré's, who are of a different breed of rich all together, the previous ones I mentioned are basically just plain Come mierdas. They aren't great thinkers nor have intellectual concerns. They love to show off their money with big splashy houses and go to the opera at the Centro de Bellas Artes, not because they like the music, but to show off their clothes and jewels. They are the rabid sponsors of the Miss Universe contest and their interests are basically going to cruises with huge buffets, Disney-World, Las Vegas, listening to Fox News and trying to find out who Anna Nichole's baby is from.

They rarely view art movies but are addicted to, of all things, ghetto flicks. The ones with a lot of shoot outs, explosions and car chases. They swear being knowledge-able of gourmet restaurants, with Chili's and TGIF topping their favorites.

"Bacalaítos fritos" in Pinoñes?, Pleeeeze, that's so "cafre" and de classé....LOL

Many Independentistas also mesh in with these "Come mierdas", in fact those from the U.S are not too far behind. The difference being that those from the states are folkloric, stressing the beauties of a lost paradise inhabited by humble and oppresed people. They get upset at anyone who tries to bring them up to 2007.

Nonetheless a large portion of independentsitas still tend to indulge in deep thought, thus being branded elitists by the middle class "come mierda" class of statehooders, PDP's and nuyoricans.

But going back to the main title of this thread, ELITISM. All deep thought IS ELITIST, it always has been. That's where most ideas come from, that is unless one believes the great thinkers of the future will come from those addicted to Bling, du-rags, gold teeth, Fox news and Ann Nichole Smith. LOL

[Stanley]

Here is more.

Picture PR in the late 60s (when I was a teenager). My 1st semester tuition at UPR was less than $100 and the Condado was still alive with a ton of tourists. Rock of music of British origin was the rage instead of Reagatón. The worst I ever did was grow my hair long and play the guitar.

Nuyoricans were rare, but I remember a few that mocked my Spanish accent as I talked English. One of these Nuyoricans even said the governor of PR could not speak English because he also had an accent. I believe he was talking about Ferré or Sánchez V. The Nuyorican ignorance was already becoming apparent.

In those days there was little US ghetto influence and Dominicans were present in small numbers. The Colegio San Ignacio, the most popular private school for those from LA Loza was starting to become invaded by the come-mierdas. Needless to say, San Ignacio was also invaded by the Cubanos. I remember, that if you said you went to San Ignacio you accumulated brownie points with the "come-mierdas". Belonging to the right fraternity was a big plus.

Phi Sigma Alpha was the one with the most prestige. In those days they use to have dances for young folks in almost every fraternity in town. They always had live music and a latin band called "Los Tropicales" were the most popular ones for the folks from La Loza. They played merengue, pasodoble, and many boleros. The members were nice kids and loved by everybody.

Raw salsa bands like Johnny el Bravo were never invited. Besides the latin band they almost always had two rock and roll bands, I played there more than once. And I recall how I was once dancing bolero with a very good looking girl and she was quite close and friendly. I was 18-19 and as you can imagine I was enthusiastic. Then she asked me if I was Phi Sigma. When I said no she seemed disenchanted. Suddenly she was hugging me with less force as the bolero played on. She then asked me where did I go to high school---------you know the drill. Her conversation became boring and then I also lost interest. The last thing I wanted was a conversation with a shallow come-mierda young woman.

Yes, I grew up with many come-mierdas. Ponceños were the worst of the lot.

[L_F_Miranda]

Stanley we are within a similar age range......I guess that's why I identify with a lot of things you say, I lived them!

Check out my thread about Nuyoricans. In one of the segments I said that they didn't exist before the 70's. We were all Puerto Ricans back then, even the kids that came back to the island in the 50's were just Puerto Ricans.

The problem began with the collapse of the industrial base of the northern cites, and the coming of age of a ghetto world view in the schools. Education became highly suspicious, a tool of oppression.

Drop out rates soured and schools became what the movie "Black Board Jungle" depicted.

Despite that anger was already surfacing among young Ricans in the late 50's, it exploded in the late 60's and got worse as the "you can't tell me what to do " youth culture took off.

I'll never forget those poor "abuelitas" that had to take care of all those misfits and "títeres" that were sent to Puerto Rico by their parents "para que le pusieran verguenza." Imagine a poor 70 year old "abuelita" given this impossible task? There were thousands of these "abuelitas" all over the island.

By then it was too late "para ponerle verguenza". These NY misfits had already internalized the black ghetto culture of anger and the notion that education was for whites. They were even surprised when arriving in Puerto Rico that "Island Ricans acted White", meaning they acted middle class, not ghetto.

They came with chips on their shoulders, defiant and looking down at the "Pendejitos puertorriqueños" whose goal back then was to attend college or get a job at the still highly employable Fomento industries that flooded the island in the 50's.

It was a different world back then. Here is where Ricans raised in the states and those raised on the island go into a short circuit mode and don't understand each other. Its two world views colliding, one a Latin American world view, which is quickly disappearing thanks to the Nuyoricans, and a ghetto world view of the marginal classes of the United States.

Nontheless, I really don't think our Puerto Rico of the 60's was just, it was a highly stratified society.

For example, in my home town "Las fregoncitas" would circle the plaza on the sidewalk, while the "Nice girls" a.k.a. "come mierdas or Flanes", would be inside. Was it a written code of exclusion. NO! Was it because Las fregonsitas were black? No!, Many fregonsitas were whiter than las "Come Mierdas", go figure. I don't know why they wouldn't mingle with the middle classes. Boys would say it was because it was easier to pick them up out side the plaza. LOL

There were a few Nuyorican girls in the High School in my senior year, they were known as "easy girls." Their nick names were "Las Chipes." a Puerto Rican version of "Cheap". LOL They hated the controlled social mores of small town Puerto Rico, they cursed like truck drivers. They dressed skimply and in school looked bored and said that our problem was we wanted to be white. Ironically they were whiter than milk themselves. They eventually left mid-term, "no daban pie con bola en la escuela." LOL

Puerto Rico continues to be a highly stratified society but not as in the 50's.
Am I concerned that it's stratified? Once I was but after going to Cuba and Vietnam, I guess that's the way things are.

[Stanley]

In a sense we were prude and less concerned with race.

I just remembered several anecdotes about the early Nuyoricans.

I go back all the way to the 7th grade when they were a few of them in our school. They were not all black, in fact one was blondish and she was called the gringa even though she was a Rican.

They showed a rebellious attitude that we did not have and often put down everything Puertorican.

I remember how this Nuyorican girl was much more provocative and whorish than the average PR girl in school. I used to hang out with my junior high friends and we would discussed her “puta” behavior as only kids of that age can do. It goes without saying that all of us wanted a crack at her, but we were too naive or fresas (as they say in Mexico).

Then one day I stayed late in school and suddenly ran into the Nuyorican girl with half her clothes off and making out with another Nuyorican boy in a deserted class room. In retrospect, no big deal, but for us 7th graders that was huge. Yes, these folks brought to PR an element that we did not have. We were still living by old fashion standards.

When I finally had my first girl friend I never contemplated the concept of “F------them, forget them” that the Nuyorican boys promoted as a more advanced level of thinking and maturity. After all they had been in NYC.

As a youngster I was constantly circulating among different cultural levels.

I had some contact with the ralea and saw the early Nuyoricans. At the same time I was also constantly in contact with the “come-mierdas” that were obsessed with knowing my family background with regards to wealth and status. I knew a ton of Cubans and about 40% of the people in my street were Cubans.

I also knew a few Puerto Ricans from La Loza because of my studies at UPR. I must say many in La Loza sent their kids to college in the USA during those days, but there were a few that stayed in the UPR. Some of these kids were nice. I knew one kid whose father had purchased him a 26 foot sail boat. I could not imagine a family where the dad would actually buy a boat for his kid. I used to go sailing with them and afterwards we would eat fish in Fajardo. That was the 1st time I saw a kid my age with an American Express card provided by his dad. Way back them that was unusual. The funny thing is that this kid never came across as a come-mierda.

[L_F_Miranda]

Stanley said:
In a sense we were prude and less concerned with race.

I don't think we were prude or un-concerned about race it was that we preferred not to deal with these issues because we all thought their limits were set in stone and anyone who broke the bounderies was going to get it via social rejection.

On race, Puerto Ricans have never been fools, we have just developed our own ways of coping with race. Our ways angered the newly arrived Nuyoricans who had picked up their racial world view from the outspoken Blacks during the Civil Rights movement.

However, what ever anyone here might say, If you compare our way of looking at race with that brought over by the Nuyoricans, we still have an edge.

Are We perfect? Who is.

A quick look at the majority of the population on the island must tell the dumbest of us all that we must have done something right during 500 years, we MIXED!

Different from the so called "superior way" of looking at race brought over by the Nuyoricans, our mixed race popualtion is telling us something. White Gringos and Blacks Don't racially mix, never have! We did!

Like I've said, Nuyoricamns are a product of a double colonization, a political one from the white Gringos and another one by being coherced into a accepting a Black American racial world view. Is it their faullt? No I think they didn't know any better, it was the product of living too closely to one another. However it has cost us dearly.

Different fom other Hispanic immigrant groups, Puerto Ricans have fared the worst in terms of economic development. Has an adoption of a culture of marginalization had anything to do with it? Any answers?

Its ironic how a great portion of the island youth has also adopted the Nuyorican-Black cultural colonization. It first began happening in the "Caseríos" of San Juan in the late 60's, from there it spread like wild fire all over the island, specially to those towns closer to the metropolitian area.

As towns were left scarred with graffti, school drop-outs hanging around the Plazas looking for loose mamis, fatherless kids and welfare addicted moms, the middle classes started to abandon the island.

No, I don't expect to bring back the past, its just that in the process of our so called "colonial modernization" New York ghetto style, "Cambiamos Chinas por Botellas."

Clarification:

Nuyoricans = Can be any stateside or island Puerto Rican , living in N.Y., Conn., Florida, Colorado, Texas, Ponce, Guayama, etc. who has adopted a Black American cultural and racial world view.

[Stanley]

Miranda:

Perhaps I was naive or too prude. But, it does not matter, my 1st encounters with the Nuyoricans of the 1960s were a learning experience.

In the old days we certainly dealt with race in a completely different manner, no doubt. In fact, I believe the old timers did not have a high degree of blackness awareness, they saw themselves as Puertoricans.

I have seen interviews with Peruchín Cepeda where he talks about the shock he experienced when he arrived in the USA to play baseball in the late 50s. He had no knowledge of the Nuyorican view regarding ethnicity. No doubt, he was hurt, but I sense he had a much greater degree of self-esteem than someone who grew up in an Anglo society mixed with an African-American world view. In the latter, race is the lens that one uses to look at everything.

I always mention how Rafael Hernández, perhaps one of the greatest composers of Latin America never bothered to mention the African roots in his masterpiece “Preciosa”. He talked about “La noble hidalguía de la madre España y el fiero cantío del indio bravío.

The Nuyorican point of view and the Africanization of PR are new concepts that come from the states and for us these concepts feel very foreign, quite strange.

BTW, posted something like this at the PIP forum and they called me “racista hispanófilo”. All I did was to say we had a hispanic culture and not an African culture.

[L_F_Miranda]

Stanley,

I find it very strange that this conversation has not brought about more posters giving opinions one way or another. Maybe its like I mentioned once, hardly anyone reads this section or many people don't care a hoot other than staying within the limits of "Folklorism."

By Folklorism I mean a heavy concentration on nostalgia. Some might say, "Hey you guys are also talking about nostalgia, a long lost world."

Yes it might be true, but I think we can cut out the crap and go into deeper analysis. Others stay stuck in a litany of a long lost paradise of beautiful beaches, change less traditions, pristine mountain brooks and little old gran-ma's making pasteles on a "fogón" in a bohio. My favorite scene is the one of Flamboyanes in full bloom with a "Carreta de bueyes" near by. LOL

In fact these are the paintings that are best sellers in the New York Puerto Rican community commanding hundreds of dollars a painting.

What I also find strange is how some apply out-dated terms like "oppresion" very loosly, giving me a mental picture of people in chains being whipped and starved by their masters. I know many use the term "oppresion" as a theoretical term but most folks who read these forums are basically not too analytical and take things literally.

As I look at people on the island snatching up Chinese made junk in the 99¢ stores and Wal-Mart, as I see them in never ending tapones and then getting ready to attend a concert of Daddy Yanki, I can't help thinking, MMMMMMMM I wonder if these people feel oppressed in a 19th century Marxist sense?

In a way they may be oppressed but try explaining that to them. I think we have to use other means, not out dated terminology, to have people gain insights on their condition.

By the way if you have time send me the link of the PIP forum via E-mail, It might be interesting to have an ongoing firery debate for a change. LOL