Puerto Rico's flag
Coat of arms of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico (officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (Spanish: Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, literally the "Free Associated State of Puerto Rico"), is a self-governing commonwealth of the United States, an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean. Puerto Rico is an archipelago that includes the main island of Puerto Rico and a number of smaller islands. The capital and largest city is San Juan. The island's official languages are Spanish, which is predominant, and English.

Quotes

A

  • Now is when I understand that no matter what happens I will be Puerto Rican...the nation is in my blood...and this song is dedicated to that noble, little peasant (jibarito) Raphael and to my "Island of Enchantment". (translated from Spanish lyrics)
    • Marc Anthony's 1999 version of the song Preciosa, Puerto Rico's unofficial anthem. With jibarito (little peasant) he refers to Rafael Hernández, the song's original author, saying he is a true Puerto Rican. Island Songs: A Global Repertoire

C

  • Everything is so new in Puerto Rico. I wanted to build something the way Puerto Rico started, something from the old land.
    • Roberto Clemente, discussing his recently opened restaurant, El Carretero (roughly translated as "one who leads the ox-drawn cart"), as quoted in "Roberto Clemente Baseball's Brightest Superstar" by Arnold Hano, in Boy's Life (March 1968), pp. 25 and 54

G

  • The United States for many years has tried to convert Puerto Rico into a model of hybrid culture: the Spanish language with English inflections, the Spanish language with hinges on its backbone--the better to bow down before the Yankee soldier. Puerto Rican soldiers have been used as cannon fodder in imperialist wars, as in Korea, and have even been made to fire at their own brothers, as in the massacre perpetrated by the U.S. army a few months ago against the unarmed people of Panama--one of the most recent crimes carried out by Yankee imperialism. And yet, despite this assault on their will and their historical destiny, the people of Puerto Rico have preserved their culture, their Latin character, their national feelings, which in themselves give proof of the implacable desire for independence lying within the masses on that Latin American island.

M

  • Give us statehood and your glorious citizenship will be welcome to us and to our children. If you deny us statehood, we decline your citizenship, frankly, proudly, as befits a people who . . . will preserve their conception of honor, which none can take from them . . .
    • Luis Muñoz Rivera, resident commissioner of Puerto Rico in a congressional meeting in 1916, about the U.S. conferring U.S. citizenship to citizens of Puerto Rico.

See also

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