About once every three or four years I stumble in to The City (as in New York City) on a Sunday in advance of Monday meetings only to be greeted by an ominous warning from my driver, “I don’t know how we’re going to get to your hotel, the Puerto Ricans have taken over the city”. Translated, that means the city will be packed with revelers of all stripes enjoying the annual Puerto Rican Day Parade…. up 5th Avenue from 46th to 86th. This may not seem like such a big deal to you uninitiated, but let me assure you that several hundred thousand parade marchers and watchers, not to mention thousands of the city’s finest trying to control the crowds make for quite a melange of joyous traffic jams of epic proportion. Just think, block off forty or so blocks of 5th Avenue for seven or eight hours with at least half of everyone on the west side wanting to cross to the east and vice versa and being able to do so only via police controlled corridors every ten or so blocks
This was not my first time at this particular party, but I’d not previously thought much about Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans except how difficult it was to change planes in San Juan when flying to one of the rude beach crusted islands in the Carribean. I knew that a lot of Puerto Ricans lived in New York and that the island had some kind of unusual official status with the US of A, the nature of which eluded me as well as most other well meaning Americans.
OK, be patient for the Cliff Notes version of Puerto Rican history. I assure you this won’t take long. Puerto Rico is composed of one major island populated by some 4000 souls adjoined by four smaller satellite islands laying some 200 km south east of the US mainland. The precursors to Puerto Rican civilization date to some time between 3000 and 2000 BC when the Otoroid culture along with the tribes of Arawak Indians arrived, presumably from South American. These peoples got along quite happily for about 2500 years surviving on domesticated fruits and veggies and pretty much leaving every one else alone. This seemed to work pretty well to the advantage of all until ol’ Chris Columbus stumbled across the island sometime in 1510 on his famous (or infamous) 2nd voyage. Fortunately, he was accompanied by Ponce de Leon from whom we would later hear much on the mainland. Poncho, as we call him, knew an opportunity when he saw one and declared for himself and the Crown of Spain, domain over all he could see and named the Island San Juan Bautista (Saint John the Baptist for you Philistines) and named the port city Puerto Rico. Yes, you may have noticed that they got it backwards. Even we know that San Juan is the town and Puerto is the country, but no one seems to know how they got it backwards.
The Spaniards, as was their wont, pretty much pillaged the country, while probably engaging in a fair share of rape for the next 388 years until they ran afoul of Uncle Sam in the Spanish American War of 1898 wherein we pretty much whipped ass and made Teddy Roosevelt a big cheese for all time. BTW, along with the other things that the Spanish brought with them were European diseases (including small pox and syphilis) against which the indigenous peoples had no defenses. Good bye Orotoid culture. All this resulted in us getting PR as a part of the Big Deal struck in Paris between our very macho diplomat negotiators and some pretty down at the mouth representatives of the King of Spain who wasn’t having a very good year. As a footnote, we also got Cuba, Guam, and the Philippines for boot. The Spanish had little to show for their 400 year rule of the Island, and Puerto Rico had even less, unless you give credit for a few rusty balustrades en fer and Catholicism which the Conquistadores happily left behind.
The US, not really being very experienced at colonialism, didn’t really know what to do with the country although we pretty quickly developed a fondness for the pretty women, rum toddies, and white sand beaches. We muddled along for almost twenty years until some politico in Congress got the Wilson Jones Act passed in 1917 which made PR a territory of the US and granted a sort of quasi citizenship to it’s inhabitants. Never happy to leave well enough alone, in 1950 Congress designated PR as a commonwealth. I’m sure the political scientists among you can tell us the difference between a territory and a commonwealth, but I can’t. I do know that about then, the Ricenos started to immigrate to the US (mostly NYC it seems) in serious numbers. And that pretty much brings us up to date except for the occasional plebiscite which tests PR’s appetite for statehood .
Now back to the parade. I got to the St. Regis just before 4:00 pm by which time the parade had already been going on for 5 hours. I deposited my luggage and repaired to a vantage point at the corner of 55th and 5th to watch the world go by. In the next sixty minutes I saw a kaleidoscope of cultures on display in the parade marchers, hangers on and watchers. Legions of semi-organized marching groups of young people with PR flags flying, painted faces, accompanied by ghetto blaster music that verged on painful to the ear. Puerto Rican icons abounded and were cheered lustily as they passed. Ricky Martin was the official King of the Parade and JayLo was it’s unofficial queen. Beer companies, vacuum cleaner repair stores, patriotic organizations, youth groups, religious organizations, politicians, radio stations, bars and nightclubs were all represented by happy Ricenos riding their floats, cars, beer wagons, fire trucks and motorcycles.
The watchers were as diverse. The young cop stationed next to me seemed to be enjoying himself as much as anyone, and while doing his bit of crowd control, he did so with a light touch, ignoring the minor infractions of the milling masses. Several tuxedoed gents with bejeweled ladies passed through the 55th street corridor on their way to a function and seemed not to notice the incongruity of their dress. The matrons all inserted fingers in ears to avoid the heavy decibels of latin hip hop. A young pair of Japanese female tourists, held their hands over their mouths to hold in the happy cries of surprise at the unusual sights. A middle eastern man held his small son on his shoulders for the view, and a small gaggle of eastern european men leered happily at the short skirts and revealing tops of the female paraders.
I spent several minutes observing a minuet of maneuver by two young blacks (here’s where cultural labeling gets dicey) who may have been african-american or more likely african-puerto rico-american. I didn’t ask. In any case, they were attired in the outfits of their cultural grouping. NY Yankee baseball caps askew, non-discript loose fitting sleeveless shirts, shiney, very baggy jeans barely held in place by odd pieces of belting, When I say baggy, I mean crotch dragging the ground baggy, but contrasted by multi-hued boxers pulled high to reveal their taste in foundation garments. Their footwear was enormous sneakers with known trademarks, mostly unlaced. All of this decorated with “bling” of suspicious value. I watched the mating dance until the young ladies lost interest or saw a better deal coming up the street. All the while being amazed by the ability of the young men to maintain their dignity while their pants were literally around their knees.
As the joyous parade of cultures passed by I thought of the increasingly acrimonious debate on immigration reform that’s now raging. Not that there’s a direct correlation to New York City’s Puerto Rican Day Parade and immigration reform, because there isn’t, But what it made me think of was the crazy quilt of cultures and colors of which America is composed. Not always, but certainly today, that seems a very good thing. A very good thing that makes us not only different, but gives us the potential for greatness. We ought not lose that part of our character.
On the way to the airport in casual conversation with my driver he mentioned that Sunday’s in Manhattan in the summer were always busy. When I asked why, he said, “all the groups got their day and their parade, that’s what makes it America”.
