One of the largest Caribbean islands between Florida and South America, Puerto Rico is still only 100 miles long and 33 miles wide, with a total area of 3,515 square miles. It contains extraordinary beaches, one of the world’s largest river cave systems and the United States park systems’ only tropical rainforest. Its tropical climate makes it a favorite vacation destination.

Sponsored by the Spanish Crown, Columbus reached the shores of this beautiful, mountainous island on his second voyage in 1493. The approximately 30,000 Arawak (Taino) who inhabited the island continued their way of life until 1508, when the island began to be settled by the Spanish and they were enslaved to work in mines and later in agriculture. By 1550 the American Indian population had been decimated by European diseases and maltreatment, as well as by flight and failed rebellions. Slaves from West Africa replaced the native population, their numbers increasing sharply in the first half of the nineteenth century as Puerto Rico moved to largescale sugar production.

Today’s population of almost 4 million reflects this historical background in its racial and cultural characteristics in an extremely densely populated and predominantly urban environment. Racially, the population consists of the progeny of white and African American families, but it is a largely mulatto mixture of whites, blacks and Arawaks.

Some coastal towns are inhabited by a majority of blacks, attesting to a past of plantation slavery in these areas. Puerto Rico’s Spanish language and the dominance of Catholicism are derivatives of Spain.

Puerto Rico has never been a free and independent nation. After three centuries of absolute and often oppressive Spanish rule, Spain ceded it to the United States in 1898, after its military occupation in the Spanish American War. For more than one hundred years, this relationship with the US has been defined through a web of often tense and ambivalent political, economic, social and cultural ties. In 1917, as the US prepared to enter the First World War, for example, Puerto Ricans were granted citizenship and the right to elect their entire legislature. Nevertheless, the appointed governor maintained the power to veto legislation and to select judicial and executive officers, and Congress could annul legislation.

It was not until 1948 that Puerto Ricans elected their own governor. The result was a mandate for Muñoz Marín, the architect of the island’s economic development program, Operation Bootstrap, and a proponent of turning Puerto Rico into an Estado Libre Asociado—an associated free state. On July 25, 1952, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico was created with its own constitution. Education, health, justice and welfare are under Puerto Rican control. The United States retains control over trade, defense, immigration, the postal system, the currency and international relations.

For decades, the organization of political parties focused on the options for the political status of the island: independence, statehood or continuation of semi-autonomous Commonwealth status. When the Popular Democratic Party was formed in 1938, its program focused on improving the stagnant economy and poor living conditions. As it launched Operation Bootstrap, it was forced to take a proCommonwealth position to attract corporations that were hesitant to invest resources in an independent Puerto Rico.

The economy of the island has evolved from agricultural to industrial since the 1940s.

In 1955, for the first time, manufacturing contributed more to the economy than agriculture. The transition displaced workers and families from rural areas, where twothirds of the population lived in 1940, to towns and urban centers where two-thirds of Puerto Ricans live now, including the capital, San Juan (437,745 in 1990), Bayamon, Ponce, Carolina and Caguas. Manufacturing provides about 40 percent of the gross domestic product, with more than one hundred pharmaceutical companies, the main industry, accounting for one-quarter of that total.

Operation Bootstrap emphasized industry, tourism and the production of rum. Local tax exemptions were provided for industrial and tourism development, and promotional campaigns were initiated in the United States to attract investors and visitors. Congress also sanctioned federal corporate tax exemptions on profits earned on the island. These stimulated growth, but budget cuts pressured Congress to phase them out over ten years, beginning in 1996, exacerbating Puerto Rico’s high unemployment rate.

In politics, Puerto Ricans hold US passports and vote in state and national elections when residing in the (continental) United States. They do not vote for the president or have voting representatives in Congress when living on the island.

Throughout the twentieth century, Puerto Ricans have struggled to maintain their identity under the process of acculturation that started in 1898. Although, officially Puerto Rico has two languages, Spanish and English, Puerto Ricans have always considered Spanish to be their mother tongue. It reflects the diversity of Puerto Rico’s heritage—many towns have maintained their preColumbian names and many other pre-Columbian and African words are part of everyday speech. The intrusion of English was first felt through imported consumer products; adults asked for Singers, not sewing machines. English also became a mandated subject in public schools. It became the second language of millions of largely working-class Puerto Ricans in the continental United States, who maintain a migratory circle between the island and mainland cities.

Music and food are bastions of cultural resistance. Salsa is heard from home and car radios. American fast food is found throughout the island, but traditional food remains the staple in most households and restaurants. Rice and small pink or kidney beans, whole roast suckling pig, prepared for the holidays and large family reunions, and fresh ham, seasoned with adobo, a thick paste of garlic, olive oil, vinegar, peppercorns, salt and oregano, remain favorites of the Puerto Rican table. Love of the homeland, culture and strong family ties also prove evident in the joyful cheers that spontaneously erupt among planeloads of returning Puerto Ricans as they land on their island.