Chapter 2: Puerto Rico In Depth

Puerto Ricans are intensely proud of their culture, a rich brew of Taíno Indian, Spanish, African, and American influences, and most relish showing off the best of it. Yet visitors will be just as struck at the worldliness of most Puerto Ricans as they are by the beat of salsa music, the symphony of flavor in a seafood stuffed mofongo, or the long line of master island painters, print makers, and song writers. That too results from its historic forging from several distinct world cultures.

For more than a century, Puerto Rico’s political life has been dominated by its century-old ties to the United States. Those ties have been largely beneficial, and most Puerto Ricans cherish their U.S. citizenship and want to maintain the current political relationship, either through continued commonwealth status or statehood. A smaller percentage favor outright separation from the United States to make Puerto Rico a sovereign nation (the pro-independence party gubernatorial candidate usually gets 5% of the vote). Yet the relationship with the United States is also the source of island society’s central anxiety, which centers on the need for a permanent political status.

Millions of Puerto Ricans have flocked stateside over the last 70 years in search of economic and educational opportunities and an improved quality of life, and they continue to do so. In fact, Puerto Ricans living stateside now surpass the number living on the island: roughly four million. But for most stateside boricuas, their allegiance still belongs to their island homeland, which means frequent trips during vacations and holidays. A sizeable number of Puerto Rican passengers are on most planes from the U.S. arriving at Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan. They will burst into applause upon touchdown on Puerto Rican soil. Many others return to Puerto Rico after retiring.

The first wave of island migrants during the 1940s and 1950s largely settled in and around New York, and came seeking blue-collar jobs and the hope for a better future for their families. Today, the typical migrant is more likely a highly educated professional moving to south or central Florida pursuing greater career advancement opportunities and an improved quality of life.

Puerto Rican writer René Marqués, who came of age in the 1940s and 1950s when Puerto Rico was modernizing into an industrial economy and getting a big dose of U.S. influence, spoke of the dual nature of his island, which nevertheless contributed to its uniqueness. “Puerto Rico has two languages,” he claimed, “and two citizenships, two basic philosophies of life, two flags, two anthems, two loyalties.”

Puerto Rico Today

Puerto Rico often makes headlines in U.S. news media, and daughters and sons of the island, from pop star Ricky Martin to actor Benicio Del Toro, have given U.S. and world audiences a taste of the enormous talent of this small island, which is also evident in the storied ledger of island baseball sluggers and boxing champs, from Roberto Clemente to Felix Trinidad. Of course, the news is not always good, and recent struggles with both crime and economic issues have also drawn headlines.

Puerto Rico, however, also draws attention because it is among the most developed destinations in the Caribbean and a true regional hub for transportation and telecommunications, with a modern infrastructure and a diversified economy.

A Changing Economy

Puerto Rico is the easternmost of the Greater Antilles and the fourth largest island in the Caribbean after Cuba, Hispaniola (which comprises the Dominican Republic and Haiti), and Jamaica. The island is located at the crossroads between North and South America, at just 3 1/2 hours airtime from New York, 60 minutes from Caracas, and only 4 days sailing from Atlantic ports in the U.S. and ports in the Gulf of Mexico. The Puerto Rican territory includes three other small islands, Vieques, Culebra, and Mona, as well as numerous islets.

Some 3,725,000 people live in Puerto Rico, approximately one-third of them within the San Juan metropolitan area. The island, with an area of 3,435 square miles (9,000 sq. km)—110 miles long by 39 miles wide—has a mountainous interior and is surrounded by a wide coastal plain where the majority of the population lives. Rainfall averages 69 inches (175 cm) per year and year-round temperatures range from 74°F (23°C) in the winter to 81°F (27°C) in the summer.

The island actually lost population during the last 10 years, one of a handful of U.S. jurisdictions to do so, according to the latest U.S. Census figures. It’s a sign of the island’s long-standing recession, which began in 2006 and was just beginning to lift at the start of 2012. With more than 4 million Puerto Ricans living stateside, it is now the first time there are more Puerto Ricans living in the continental U.S. than on the island.

Relationship with the United States

Puerto Rico came under the European sphere of influence in 1493, when Christopher Columbus landed here. Shortly thereafter, the island was conquered and settled by the Spaniards. It remained a Spanish possession for 4 centuries.

The territory of Puerto Rico was ceded to the United States upon signature of the Treaty of Paris, on December 10, 1898, a pact which ended the Spanish-American War. Puerto Ricans have been citizens of the United States since 1917. In 1950, after a long evolution toward greater self-government for Puerto Rico, the Congress of the United States enacted Public Law 600, which is “in the nature of a compact” and which became effective upon its acceptance by the electorate of Puerto Rico. It provides that those sections of existing law, which defined the political, economic, and fiscal relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States, would remain in full force. It also authorized the people of Puerto Rico to draft and adopt their own Constitution. The Constitution was drafted by a popularly elected constitutional convention, overwhelmingly approved in a special referendum by the people of Puerto Rico, and approved by the United States Congress and the president of the United States, becoming effective upon proclamation of the governor of Puerto Rico on July 25, 1952. Puerto Rico’s relationship with the United States is referred to herein as commonwealth status.

The United States and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (the “Commonwealth”) share a common defense, market, and currency. The Commonwealth exercises virtually the same control over its internal affairs as do the 50 states. It differs from the states, however, in its relationship with the federal government. The people of Puerto Rico are citizens of the United States but do not vote in national elections. They are represented in Congress by a Resident Commissioner who has a voice in the House of Representatives but no vote. Most federal taxes, except those such as Social Security taxes, which are imposed by mutual consent, are not levied in Puerto Rico. No federal income tax is collected from Puerto Rico residents on income earned in Puerto Rico, except for certain federal employees who are subject to taxes on their salaries. The official languages of Puerto Rico are Spanish and English.

Governmental Structure

The Constitution of the Commonwealth provides for the separation of powers of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. The governor is elected every 4 years. The Legislative Assembly consists of a Senate and a House of Representatives, the members of which are elected for 4-year terms. The highest court within the local jurisdiction is the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico constitutes a District in the Federal Judiciary and has its own United States District Court. Decisions of this court may be appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and from there to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Its progress and relative economic strength compared to Caribbean nations has stemmed from its economic diversity. The $93.3-billion economy is comprised of manufacturing (41.5%); finance, insurance, and real estate (17.7%); trade (12.7%); government (9.6%); transportation and public utilities (6.5%); construction and mining (2.1%); and agriculture (0.5%).

Puerto Ricans’ annual income is among the highest in Latin America, and their average life expectancy has risen to 73.8 years. The island’s economy began evolving from its agricultural base in the 1950s when the Operation Bootstrap industrialization program began attracting stateside manufacturing plants. The sector, powered by Puerto Rico’s unique political status that allows firms to escape federal taxation, grew to represent nearly half of the island. The demand for an educated workforce has resulted in at least 12 years of schooling for ordinary workers. More importantly, the solid manufacturing industry sparked the growth of a whole host of professional services on the island, including legal, financial, engineering, and accounting, so that today Puerto Rico remains a regional center for most professional services. The island has a number of universities, including the highly regarded University of Puerto Rico, with specialized programs in engineering, medicine, law, and increasingly research and development in a number of fields, including the life sciences.

Manufacturing, for so many years the workhorse of the island economy, has been hit by competition from low-cost destinations, as well as high local utility, shipping, and other fixed costs.

The sector’s decline began in 1996, when a 10-year phase-out of U.S. industrial tax breaks began. This marked the end of 75 years of federal incentives that attracted stateside industries and helped make Puerto Rico the Caribbean’s industrial powerhouse. Puerto Rico nevertheless continues to produce about half the prescription drugs sold in the United States.

In response to the industrial exodus, the government is trying to entice existing high-tech industry to stay through an increased focus on research and development. Another target is an island life-sciences research and manufacturing sector through joint private-industry and university ventures.

A big strategy will also compensate for the loss in manufacturing by increasing other economic drivers, from agriculture to shipping to increased professional services, which could include anything from healthcare to finance.

The Tourism Industry

Tourism, which represents about 6% of the gross national product, is a small but important economic segment, and a good source of employment, especially for the island’s well-educated, worldly, bilingual youths. The current administration, as with past administrations, wants to double the size of tourism to 12% of the economy.

At once both labor-intensive and environmentally friendly, tourism is seen as a partial answer to the slowdown in the manufacturing sector. Still, there are challenges: A Cuban reopening to the American tourism market could steal business from Puerto Rico, which saw its tourism industry’s growth fueled enormously by the embargo imposed on Castro’s communist government. Before Fidel Castro took over Cuba in 1959, Americans by the thousands flocked to Havana, and Puerto Rico was a mere dot on the tourist map.

Others say the island could still prosper with an open Cuba because the local tourism product is top of the line, aimed at the most wealthy and discriminating of travelers. They also predict Puerto Rico tourism industry players will have a role in an open Cuba.

Regardless, the tourism industry has been a perennially important part of the island’s economic success, and it is poised to take on an even more significant role in the future. The industry will redirect its focus, providing more opportunity for those interested in ecotourism, and smaller scale projects, diverging from the oceanfront resort tourism of Condado and Isla Verde, which still define the Puerto Rico experience for most visitors. The effort to diversify will result in more boutique properties, secluded beach getaways, and mountain eco-lodges, which is good news for travelers here.

Crime & Unemployment

Even with its advanced economy, Puerto Rico struggles with an unemployment rate surpassing 14% in recent years and a per capita income about half the level of the poorest U.S. state, Mississippi. Its bloated government bureaucracy is an increasing problem, responsible for deficit spending and high local taxation.

Mirroring the U.S. mainland, rising crime, drugs, AIDS, and other social problems plague Puerto Rico. Its association with the United States has made it a favorite transshipment point for drug smugglers entering the U.S. market (because once on the island, travelers don’t have to pass through Customs inspectors again when traveling to the United States).

The drug problem is behind much of local violent crime, including killings that have pushed the local murder rate to among the highest in the United States.

Other violence and social ills associated with drugs have also beset the island.

Although the drug issue is of epidemic proportions, you can visit Puerto Rico and be completely unaware of any criminal activity. Tourist areas in San Juan (including Old San Juan, Condado, and Isla Verde) are generally free of violent crime and theft, and efforts in the past 20 years to resolve the drug and crime problem have helped make safer streets.

The 51st State?

The New Progressive Party wants to make Puerto Rico the 51st state, but the opposition is strong, both on the island and in Congress. A nonbinding referendum in 1998 stayed the New Progressive’s bid for statehood. Another status vote is set for November 2012 but again will not bind the United States to abide by its results.

The other major party, the Popular Democratic Party, backs the continued commonwealth status, while the Puerto Rican Independence Party typically achieves less than 5% of popular support in gubernatorial elections. These three parties have dominated island politics of the last 6 decades.

See “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Statehood” for more.

Looking Back: Puerto Rico History

In the Beginning

Although the Spanish occupation was the decisive factor defining Puerto Rico’s current culture, the island was settled many thousands of years ago by Amerindians. The oldest archaeological remains yet discovered were unearthed in 1948. Found in a limestone cave a few miles east of San Juan, in Loíza Aldea, the artifacts consisted of conch shells, stone implements, and crude hatchets deposited by tribal peoples during the first century of the Christian era. These people belonged to an archaic, semi-nomadic, cave-dwelling culture that had not developed either agriculture or pottery. Some ethnologists suggest that these early inhabitants originated in Florida, immigrated to Cuba, and from there began a steady migration along the West Indian archipelago.

Around a.d. 300, a different group of Amerindians, the Arawaks, migrated to Puerto Rico from the Orinoco Basin in what is now Venezuela. Known by ethnologists as the Saladoids, they were the first of Puerto Rico’s inhabitants to make and use pottery, which they decorated with exotic geometric designs in red and white. Subsisting on fish, crab, and whatever else they could catch, they populated the big island as well as the offshore island of Vieques.

By about a.d. 600, this culture had disappeared, bringing to an end the island’s historical era of pottery making. Ethnologists’ opinions differ as to whether the tribes were eradicated by new invasions from South America, succumbed to starvation or plague, or simply evolved into the next culture that dominated Puerto Rico—the Ostionoids.

Much less skilled at making pottery than their predecessors but more accomplished at polishing and grinding stones for jewelry and tools, the Ostionoids were the ethnic predecessors of the tribe that became the Taínos. The Taínos inhabited Puerto Rico when it was explored and invaded by the Spanish, beginning in 1493. The Taínos were spread throughout the West Indies but reached their greatest development in Puerto Rico and neighboring Hispaniola (the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic).

Ponce de León: Man of myth & legend

For an explorer of such myth and legend, Juan Ponce de León still remains an enigma to many historians, his exploits subject to as much myth as fact.

It is known that he was born around 1460 in San Tervas de Campos, a province of Valladolid in Spain, to a noble Castilian family. The red-haired youth grew into an active, aggressive, and perhaps impulsive young man, similar in some respects to Sir Francis Drake in England. After taking part in Spain’s Moorish wars, Ponce de León sailed to America with Columbus on his second voyage, in 1493.

In the New World, Ponce de León served as a soldier in the Spanish settlement of Hispaniola, now the island home of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. From 1502 to 1504, he led Spanish forces against Indians in the eastern part of the island, finally defeating them.

In 1508, he explored Puerto Rico, discovering gold on the island and conquering the native tribes within a year. A year later, he was named governor of Puerto Rico and soon rose to become one of the most powerful Europeans in the Americas. From most accounts, Ponce de León was a good governor of Puerto Rico before his political rivals forced him from office in 1512.

At that time, he received permission from King Ferdinand to colonize the island of Bimini in the Bahamas. In searching for Bimini, he came upon the northeast coast of Florida—which he at first thought was an island—in the spring of 1513. He named it La Florida, because he discovered it at the time of Pascua Florida or “Flowery Easter.” He was the first explorer to claim some of the North American mainland for Spain.

The following year he sailed back to Spain, carrying with him 5,000 gold pesos. King Ferdinand ordered him back to Puerto Rico with instructions to colonize both Bimini and Florida. Back in Puerto Rico, Ponce de León ordered the building of the city of San Juan. In 1521, he sailed to Florida with 200 men and supplies to start a colony. This was to be his downfall. Wounded by a poison arrow in his thigh, he was taken back to Cuba in June 1521 and died there from his wound.

Legend says Ponce de León searched in vain for the so-called Fountain of Youth, first in Bimini and later in Florida. He never once mentioned it in any of his private or official writings—at least those writings that still exist—and historians believe his goal was gold and other treasures (and perhaps to convert the natives to Catholicism).

His legacy lives on at the Casa Blanca in Old San Juan. Casa Blanca is the oldest continuously occupied residence in the Western Hemisphere and the oldest of about 800 Spanish colonial buildings in Old San Juan’s National Historic Zone. In 1968, it became a historic national monument. Today the building is the site of the Juan Ponce de León Museum. The conquistador’s carved coat of arms greets visitors at the entrance.

Taíno culture impressed the colonial Spanish, and it continues to impress modern sociologists. This people’s achievements included construction of ceremonial ballparks whose boundaries were marked by upright stone dolmens, development of a universal language, and creation of a complicated religious cosmology. They believed in a hierarchy of deities who inhabited the sky. The god Yocahu was the supreme creator. Another god, Juracán, was perpetually angry and ruled the power of the hurricane. Myths and traditions were perpetuated through ceremonial dances (areytos), drumbeats, oral traditions, and a ceremonial ballgame played between opposing teams (10–30 players per team) with a rubber ball; winning this game was thought to bring a good harvest and strong, healthy children. Skilled at agriculture and hunting, the Taínos were also good sailors, canoe makers, and navigators.

About 100 years before the Spanish invasion, the Taínos were challenged by an invading South American tribe—the Caribs. Fierce, warlike, sadistic, and adept at using poison-tipped arrows, the Caribs raided Taíno settlements for slaves (especially female) and bodies for the completion of their rites of cannibalism. Some ethnologists argue that the preeminence of the Taínos, shaken by the attacks of the Caribs, was already jeopardized by the time of the Spanish occupation. In fact, it was the Caribs who fought most effectively against the Europeans; their behavior led the Europeans to unfairly attribute warlike tendencies to all of the island’s tribes. A dynamic tension between the Taínos and the Caribs certainly existed when Christopher Columbus landed on Puerto Rico.

To understand Puerto Rico’s prehistoric era, it is important to know that the Taínos, far more than the Caribs, contributed greatly to the everyday life and language that evolved during the Spanish occupation. Taíno place names are still used for such towns as Utuado, Mayagüez, Caguas, and Humacao. Many Taíno implements and techniques were copied directly by the Europeans, including the bohío (straw hut), the hamaca (hammock), the musical instrument known as maracas, and the method of making bread from the starchy cassava root. Also, many Taíno superstitions and legends were adopted and adapted by the Spanish and still influence the Puerto Rican imagination.

Spain, Syphilis & Slavery

Christopher Columbus became the first European to land on the shores of Puerto Rico, on November 19, 1493, near what would become the town of Aguadilla, during his second voyage to the New World. Giving the island the name San Juan Bautista, he sailed on in search of shores with more obvious riches for the taking. A European foothold on the island was established in 1508, when Juan Ponce de León, the first governor of Puerto Rico, imported colonists from the nearby island of Hispaniola. They founded the town of Caparra, which lay close to the site of present-day San Juan. The town was almost immediately wracked with internal power struggles among the Spanish settlers, who pressed the native peoples into servitude, evangelized them, and frantically sought for gold, thus quickly changing the face of the island.

Meanwhile, the Amerindians began dying at an alarming rate, victims of imported diseases such as smallpox and whooping cough, against which they had no biological immunity. The natives paid the Spanish back, giving them diseases such as syphilis against which they had little immunity. Both communities reeled, disoriented from their contact with one another. In 1511, the Amerindians rebelled against Spanish attempts to enslave them. The rebellion was brutally suppressed by the Spanish forces of Ponce de León, whose muskets and firearms were vastly superior to the hatchets and arrows of the native peoples. In desperation, the Taínos joined forces with their traditional enemies, the Caribs, but even that union did little to check the growth of European power.

Because the Indians languished in slavery, sometimes preferring mass suicide to imprisonment, their work in the fields and mines of Puerto Rico was soon taken over by Africans who were imported by Spanish, Danish, Portuguese, and British slavers.

By 1521, the island had been renamed Puerto Rico (Rich Port) and was one of the most strategic islands in the Caribbean, which was increasingly viewed as a Spanish sea. Officials of the Spanish Crown dubbed the island “the strongest foothold of Spain in America” and hastened to strengthen the already impressive bulwarks surrounding the city of San Juan.

Pirates & Pillaging Englishmen

Within a century, Puerto Rico’s position at the easternmost edge of what would become Spanish America helped it play a major part in the Spanish expansion toward Florida, the South American coast, and Mexico. It was usually the first port of call for Spanish ships arriving in the Americas; recognizing that the island was a strategic keystone, the Spanish decided to strengthen its defenses. By 1540, La Fortaleza, the first of three massive fortresses built in San Juan, was completed. By 1600, San Juan was completely enclosed by some of the most formidable ramparts in the Caribbean, whereas, ironically, the remainder of Puerto Rico was almost defenseless. In 1565, the king of Spain ordered the governor of Puerto Rico to provide men and materials to strengthen the city of St. Augustine, Florida.

By this time, the English (and to a lesser extent, the French) were seriously harassing Spanish shipping in the Caribbean and north Atlantic. At least part of the French and English aggression was in retaliation for the 1493 Papal Bull dividing the New World between Portugal and Spain—an arrangement that eliminated all other nations from the spoils and colonization of the New World.

Queen Elizabeth I’s most effective weapon against Spanish expansion in the Caribbean wasn’t the Royal Navy; rather, it was buccaneers such as John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake. Their victories included the destruction of St. Augustine in Florida, Cartagena in Colombia, and Santo Domingo in what is now the Dominican Republic, and the general harassment and pillaging of many Spanish ships and treasure convoys sailing from the New World to Europe with gold and silver from the Aztec and Inca empires. The Royal Navy did play an important role, however, as its 1588 defeat of the Spanish Armada marked the rise of the English as a major maritime power. The Spanish then began to aggressively fortify such islands as Puerto Rico.

In 1595, Drake and Hawkins persuaded Queen Elizabeth to embark on a bold and daring plan to invade and conquer Puerto Rico. An English general, the Earl of Cumberland, urged his men to bravery by “assuring your selves you have the maydenhead of Puerto Rico and so possesse the keyes of all the Indies.”

Confident that the island was “the very key of the West Indies which locketh and shutteth all the gold and silver in the continent of America and Brasilia,” he brought into battle an English force of 4,500 soldiers and eventually captured La Fortaleza.

Although the occupation lasted a full 65 days, the English eventually abandoned Puerto Rico when their armies were decimated by tropical diseases and the local population, which began to engage in guerrilla warfare against the invading army. After pillaging and destroying much of the Puerto Rican countryside, the English left. Their short but abortive victory compelled the Spanish king, Philip III, to continue construction of the island’s defenses. Despite these efforts, Puerto Rico retained a less-than-invincible aspect as Spanish soldiers in the forts often deserted or succumbed to tropical diseases.

A Dutch Threat

In 1625, Puerto Rico was covetously eyed by Holland, whose traders and merchants desperately wanted a foothold in the West Indies. Spearheaded by the Dutch West India Company, which had received trading concessions from the Dutch Crown covering most of the West Indies, the Dutch armies besieged El Morro Fortress in San Juan in one of the bloodiest assaults the fortress ever sustained. When the commanding officer of El Morro refused to surrender, the Dutch burned San Juan to the ground, including all church and civil archives and the bishop’s library, by then the most famous and complete collection of books in America. Fueled by rage, the Spanish rallied and soon defeated the Dutch.

In response to the destruction of the strongest link in the chain of Spanish defenses, Spain threw itself wholeheartedly into improving and reinforcing the defenses around San Juan. King Philip IV justified his expenditures by declaring Puerto Rico the “front and vanguard of the Western Indies and, consequently, the most important of them and most coveted by the enemies of Spain.”

Within 150 years, after extravagant expenditures of time and money, San Juan’s walls were almost impregnable. Military sophistication was added during the 1760s, when two Irishmen, Tomas O’Daly and Alejandro O’Reilly, surrounded the city with some of Europe’s most up-to-date defenses. Despite the thick walls, however, the island’s defenses remained precarious because of the frequent tropical epidemics that devastated the ranks of the soldiers; the chronically late pay, which weakened the soldiers’ morale; and the belated and often wrong-minded priorities of the Spanish monarchy.

A Catholic Crusade

From the earliest days of Spanish colonization, an army of priests and missionaries embarked on a vigorous crusade to convert Puerto Rico’s Taínos to Roman Catholicism. King Ferdinand himself paid for the construction of a Franciscan monastery and a series of chapels, and he required specific support of the church from the aristocrats who had been awarded land grants in the new territories. They were required to build churches, provide Christian burials, and grant religious instruction to both Taíno and African slaves.

Among the church’s most important activities were the Franciscan monks’ efforts to teach the island’s children how to read, write, and count. In 1688, Bishop Francisco Padilla, who is now included among the legends of Puerto Rico, established one of the island’s most famous schools. When it became clear that local parents were too poor to provide their children with appropriate clothing, he succeeded in persuading the king of Spain to pay for their clothes.

Puerto Rico was declared by the pope as the first see (ecclesiastical headquarters) in the New World. In 1519, it became the general headquarters of the Inquisition in the New World. (About 70 years later, the Inquisition’s headquarters were transferred to the well-defended city of Cartagena, Colombia.)

From Smuggling to Sugar

The island’s early development was shackled by Spain’s insistence on a centrist economy. All goods exported from or imported to Puerto Rico had to pass through Spain itself, usually through Seville. In effect, this policy prohibited any official trade between Puerto Rico and its island neighbors.

In response, a flourishing black market developed. Cities such as Ponce became smuggling centers. This black market was especially prevalent after the Spanish colonization of Mexico and Peru, when many Spanish goods, which once would have been sent to Puerto Rico, ended up in those more immediately lucrative colonies instead. Although smugglers were punished if caught, nothing could curb this illegal (and untaxed) trade. Some historians estimate that almost everyone on the island—including priests, citizens, and military and civic authorities—was actively involved in smuggling.

By the mid-1500s, the several hundred settlers who had immigrated to Puerto Rico from Spain heard and sometimes believed rumors of the fortunes to be made in the gold mines of Peru. When the island’s population declined because of the ensuing mass exodus, the king enticed 500 families from the Canary Islands to settle on Puerto Rico between 1683 and 1691. Meanwhile, an active trade in slaves—imported as labor for fields that were increasingly used for sugar-cane and tobacco production—swelled the island’s ranks. This happened despite the Crown’s imposition of strict controls on the number of slaves that could be brought in. Sugar cane earned profits for many islanders, but Spanish mismanagement, fraud within the government bureaucracy, and a lack of both labor and ships to transport the finished product to market discouraged the fledgling industry. Later, fortunes were made and lost in the production of ginger, an industry that died as soon as the Spanish government raised taxes on ginger imports to exorbitant levels. Despite the arrival of immigrants to Puerto Rico from many countries, diseases such as spotted fever, yellow fever, malaria, smallpox, and measles wiped out the population almost as fast as it grew.

More Smuggling

As the philosophical and political movement known as the Enlightenment swept both Europe and North America during the late 1700s and the 1800s, Spain moved to improve Puerto Rico’s economy through its local government. The island’s defenses were beefed up, roads and bridges were built, and a public education program was launched. The island remained a major Spanish naval stronghold in the New World. Immigration from Europe and other places more than tripled the population. It was during this era that Puerto Rico began to develop a unique identity of its own, a native pride, and a consciousness of its importance within the Caribbean.

The heavily fortified city of San Juan, the island’s civic centerpiece, remained under Spain’s rigid control. Although it was the victim of an occasional pirate raid, or an attack by English or French forces, the outlying countryside was generally left alone to develop its own local power centers. The city of Ponce, for example, flourished under the Spanish Crown’s lax supervision and grew wealthy from the tons of contraband and the high-quality sugar that passed through its port. This trend was also encouraged by the unrealistic law that declared San Juan the island’s only legal port. Contemporary sources, in fact, cite the fledgling United States as among the most active of Ponce’s early contraband trading partners.

Rising Power

During the 18th century, the number of towns on the island grew rapidly. There were five settlements in Puerto Rico in 1700; 100 years later, there were almost 40 settlements, and the island’s population had grown to more than 150,000.

Meanwhile, the waters of the Caribbean increasingly reflected the diplomatic wars unfolding in Europe. In 1797, after easily capturing Trinidad (which was poorly defended by the Spanish), the British failed in a spectacular effort to conquer Puerto Rico. The criollos, or native Puerto Ricans, played a major role in the island’s defense and later retained a growing sense of their cultural identity.

The islanders were becoming aware that Spain could not enforce the hundreds of laws it had previously imposed to support its centrist trade policies. Thousands of merchants, farmers, and civil authorities traded profitably with privateers from various nations, thereby deepening the tendency to evade or ignore the laws imposed by Spain and its colonial governors. The attacks by privateers on British shipping were especially severe because pirates based in Puerto Rico ranged as far south as Trinidad, bringing dozens of captured British ships into Puerto Rican harbors. (Several decades earlier, British privateers operating out of Jamaica had endlessly harassed Spanish shipping; the tradition of government-sanctioned piracy was well established.)

It was during this period that coffee—which would later play an essential role in the island’s economy—was introduced to the Puerto Rican highlands from the nearby Dominican Republic.

Despite the power of San Juan and its Spanish institutions, 18th-century Puerto Rico was predominantly rural. The report of a special emissary of the Spanish king, Marshal Alejandro O’Reilly, remains a remarkably complete analysis of 18th-century Puerto Rican society. It helped promote a more progressive series of fiscal and administrative policies that reflected the Enlightenment ideals found in many European countries.

Puerto Rico began to be viewed as a potential source of income for the Spanish Empire rather than a drain on income. One of O’Reilly’s most visible legacies was his recommendation that people live in towns rather than be scattered about the countryside. Shortly after this, seven new towns were established.

As the island prospered and its bourgeoisie became more numerous and affluent, life became more refined. New public buildings were erected; concerts were introduced; and everyday aspects of life—such as furniture and social ritual—grew more ornate. Insights into Puerto Rico’s changing life can be seen in the works of its most famous 18th-century painter, José Campeche.

The Last Bastion

Much of the politics of 19th-century Latin America cannot be understood without a review of Spain’s problems at that time. Up until 1850, there was political and military turmoil in Spain, a combination that eventually led to the collapse of its empire. Since 1796, Spain had been a military satellite of postrevolutionary France, an alliance that brought it into conflict with England. In 1804, Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson’s definitive victory for England over French and Spanish ships during the Battle of Trafalgar left England in supreme control of the international sea lanes and interrupted trade and communications between Spain and its colonies in the New World.

These events led to changes for Spanish-speaking America. The revolutionary fervor of Simón Bolívar and his South American compatriots spilled over to the entire continent, embroiling Spain in a desperate attempt to hold on to the tattered remains of its empire. Recognizing that Puerto Rico and Cuba were probably the last bastions of Spanish Royalist sympathy in the Americas, Spain liberalized its trade policies, decreeing that goods no longer had to pass through Seville.

The sheer weight and volume of illegal Puerto Rican trade with such countries as Denmark, France, and—most importantly—the United States, forced Spain’s hand in establishing a realistic set of trade reforms. A bloody revolution in Haiti, which had produced more sugar cane than almost any other West Indies island, spurred sugar-cane and coffee production in Puerto Rico. Also important was the introduction of a new and more prolific species of sugar cane, the Otahiti, which helped increase production even more.

By the 1820s, the United States was providing ample supplies of such staples as lumber, salt, butter, fish, grain, and foodstuffs, and huge amounts of Puerto Rican sugar, molasses, coffee, and rum were consumed in the United States. Meanwhile, the United States was increasingly viewed as the keeper of the peace in the Caribbean, suppressing the piracy that flourished while Spain’s Navy was preoccupied with its European wars.

During Venezuela’s separation from Spain, Venezuelans loyal to the Spanish Crown fled en masse to the remaining Royalist bastions in the Americas—Puerto Rico and, to a lesser extent, Cuba. Although many arrived penniless, having forfeited their properties in South America in exchange for their lives, their excellent understanding of agriculture and commerce probably catalyzed much of the era’s economic development in Puerto Rico. Simultaneously, many historians argue, their unflinching loyalty to the Spanish Crown contributed to one of the most conservative and reactionary social structures anywhere in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. In any event, dozens of Spanish naval expeditions that were intended to suppress the revolutions in Venezuela were outfitted in Puerto Rican harbors during this period.

A Revolt Suppressed & Slavery Abolished

During the latter half of the 19th century, political divisions were drawn in Puerto Rico, reflecting both the political instability in Spain and the increasing demands of Puerto Ricans for some form of self-rule. As governments and regimes in Spain rose and fell, Spanish policies toward its colonies in the New World changed, too.

In 1865, representatives from Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines were invited to Madrid to air their grievances as part of a process of liberalizing Spanish colonial policy. Reforms, however, did not follow as promised, and a much-publicized and very visible minirevolt (during which the mountain city of Lares was occupied) was suppressed by the Spanish governors in 1868. Some of the funds and much of the publicity for this revolt came from expatriate Puerto Ricans living in Chile, St. Thomas, and New York.

Slavery was abolished in March 1873, about 40 years after it had been abolished throughout the British Empire. About 32,000 slaves were freed following years of liberal agitation. Abolition was viewed as a major victory for liberal forces throughout Puerto Rico, although cynics claim that slavery was much less entrenched in Puerto Rico than in neighboring Cuba, where the sugar economy was far more dependent on slave labor.

The 1895 revolution in Cuba increased the Puerto Rican demand for greater self-rule; during the ensuing intellectual ferment, many political parties emerged. The Cuban revolution provided part of the spark that led to the Spanish-American War, Cuban independence, and U.S. control of Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and the Pacific island of Guam.

The Yanks Are Coming! The Yanks Are Coming!

In 1897, faced with intense pressure from sources within Puerto Rico, a weakened Spain granted its colony a measure of autonomy, but it came too late. Other events were taking place between Spain and the United States that would forever change the future of Puerto Rico.

On February 15, 1898, the U.S. battleship Maine was blown up in the harbor of Havana, killing 266 men. The so-called yellow press in the United States, especially the papers owned by the tycoon William Randolph Hearst, aroused Americans’ emotions into a fever pitch for war, with the rallying cry “Remember the Maine.”

On April 20 of that year, President William McKinley signed a resolution demanding Spanish withdrawal from Cuba. The president ordered a blockade of Cuba’s ports, and on April 24, Spain, in retaliation, declared a state of war with the United States. On April 25, the U.S. Congress declared war on Spain. In Cuba, the naval battle of Santiago was won by American forces, and in another part of the world, the Spanish colony of the Philippines was also captured by U.S. troops.

On July 25, after their victory at Santiago, U.S. troops landed at Guánica, Puerto Rico, and several days later they took over Ponce. U.S. Navy Capt. Alfred T. Mahan later wrote that the United States viewed Puerto Rico, Spain’s remaining colonial outpost in the Caribbean, as vital to American interests in the area. Puerto Rico could be used as a military base to help the United States maintain control of the Isthmus of Panama and to keep communications and traffic flowing between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

Spain offered to trade other territory for Puerto Rico, but the United States refused and demanded Spain’s ouster from the island. Left with little choice against superior U.S. forces, Spain capitulated. The Spanish-American War ended on August 31, 1898, with the surrender of Spain and the virtual collapse of the once-powerful Spanish Empire. Puerto Rico, in the words of McKinley, was to “become a territory of the United States.”

Although the entire war lasted just over 4 months, the invasion of Puerto Rico took only 2 weeks. “It wasn’t much of a war,” remarked Theodore Roosevelt, who had led the Rough Riders cavalry outfit in their charge up San Juan Hill, “but it was all the war there was.” The United States had suffered only four casualties while acquiring Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and the island of Guam. The Treaty of Paris, signed on December 10, 1898, settled the terms of Spain’s surrender.

A Dubious Prize

Some Americans looked on Puerto Rico as a “dubious prize.” One-third of the population consisted of mulattoes and blacks, descended from slaves, who had no money or land. Only about 12% of the population could read or write. About 8% were enrolled in school. It is estimated that a powerful landed gentry—only about 2% of the population—owned more than two-thirds of the land.

Washington set up a military government in Puerto Rico, headed by the War Department. A series of governors-general were appointed to rule the island, with almost the authority of dictators. Although ruling over a rather unhappy populace, these governors-general brought about much-needed change, including tax and public health reforms. But most Puerto Ricans wanted autonomy, and many leaders, including Luís Muñoz Rivera, tried to persuade Washington to compromise. However, their protests generally fell on deaf ears.

Tensions mounted between Puerto Ricans and their new American governors. In 1900, U.S. Secretary of War Elihu Root decided that military rule of the island was inadequate; he advocated a program of autonomy that won the endorsement of President McKinley.

The island’s beleaguered economy was further devastated by an 1899 hurricane that caused millions of dollars’ worth of property damage, killed 3,000 people, and left one out of four people homeless. Belatedly, Congress allocated the sum of $200,000, but this did little to relieve the suffering.

Thus began a nearly 50-year colonial protectorate relationship, as Puerto Rico was recognized as an unincorporated territory with its governor named by the president of the United States. Only the president had the right to override the veto of the island’s governors. The legislative branch was composed of an 11-member executive committee appointed by the president, plus a 35-member chamber of delegates elected by popular vote. A resident commissioner, it was agreed, would represent Puerto Rico in Congress, “with voice but no vote.”

As the United States prepared to enter World War I in 1917, Puerto Ricans were granted U.S. citizenship and, thus, were subject to military service. The people of Puerto Rico were allowed to elect their legislature, which had been reorganized into a Senate and a House of Representatives. The president of the United States continued to appoint the governor of the island and retained the power to veto any of the governor’s actions.

From Harvard to Revolution

Many Puerto Ricans continued (at times rather violently) to agitate for independence. Requests for a plebiscite were constantly turned down. Meanwhile, economic conditions improved as the island’s population began to grow dramatically. Government revenues increased as large corporations from the U.S. mainland found Puerto Rico a profitable place in which to do business. There was much labor unrest, and by 1909, a labor movement demanding better working conditions and higher wages was gaining momentum.

The emerging labor movement showed its strength by organizing a cigar workers’ strike in 1914 and a sugar-cane workers’ strike the following year. The 1930s proved to be disastrous for Puerto Rico, which suffered greatly from the worldwide depression. To make matters worse, two devastating hurricanes—one in 1928 and another in 1932—destroyed millions of dollars’ worth of crops and property. There was also an outbreak of disease that demoralized the population. Some relief came in the form of food shipments authorized by Congress.

As tension between Puerto Rico and the United States intensified, there emerged Pedro Albizu Campos, a graduate of Harvard Law School and a former U.S. Army officer. Leading a group of militant anti-American revolutionaries, he held that America’s claim to Puerto Rico was illegal, as the island had already been granted autonomy by Spain. Terrorist acts by his followers, including assassinations, led to Albizu’s imprisonment, but terrorist activities continued.

In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt launched the Puerto Rican Reconstruction Administration, which provided for agricultural development, public works, and electrification. The following year, Sen. Millard E. Tidings of Maryland introduced a measure to grant independence to the island. His efforts were cheered by a local leader, Luís Muñoz Marín, son of the statesman Luís Muñoz Rivera. In 1938, the young Muñoz founded the Popular Democratic Party, which adopted the slogan “Bread, Land, and Liberty.” By 1940, this party had gained control of more than 50% of the seats of both the upper and lower houses of government, and the young Muñoz was elected leader of the Senate.

Roosevelt appointed Rexford Guy Tugwell governor of Puerto Rico; Tugwell spoke Spanish and seemed to have genuine concern for the plight of the islanders. Muñoz met with Tugwell and convinced him that Puerto Rico was capable of electing its own governor. As a step in that direction, Roosevelt appointed Jesús Piñero as the first resident commissioner of the island. In 1944, the U.S. Congress approved a bill granting Puerto Rico the right to elect its own governor. This was the beginning of the famed Operation Bootstrap, a pump-priming fiscal and economic aid package designed to improve the island’s standard of living.

Shooting at Harry

In 1946, President Harry S. Truman appointed native-born Jesús Piñero as governor of Puerto Rico, and the following year the U.S. Congress recognized the right of Puerto Ricans to elect their own governor. In 1948, Luís Muñoz Marín became the first elected governor and immediately recommended that Puerto Rico be transformed into an “associated free state.” Endorsement of his plan was delayed by Washington, but President Truman approved the Puerto Rican Commonwealth Bill in 1950, providing for a plebiscite in which voters would decide whether they would remain a colony or become a U.S. commonwealth. In June 1951, Puerto Ricans voted three to one for commonwealth status, and on July 25, 1952, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico was born.

This event was marred when a group of nationalists marched on the Governor’s Mansion in San Juan, resulting in 27 deaths and hundreds of casualties. A month later, two Puerto Rican nationalists made an unsuccessful attempt on Truman’s life in Washington, killing a police officer in the process. And in March 1954, four Puerto Rican nationalists wounded five U.S. Congressmen when they fired down into the House of Representatives from the visitors’ gallery.

Despite this violence, during the 1950s Puerto Rico began to take pride in its culture and traditions. In 1955, the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture was established, and 1957 saw the inauguration of the Pablo Casals Festival, which launched a renaissance of classical music and a celebration of the arts. In 1959, a wealthy industrialist, Luís A. Ferré, donated his personal art collection toward the establishment of the Museo de Arte de Ponce.

Give Me Liberty or Give Me Statehood

Luís Muñoz Marín resigned from office in 1964, but his party continued to win subsequent elections. The Independent Party, which demanded complete autonomy, gradually lost power. An election on July 23, 1967, reconfirmed the desire of most Puerto Ricans to maintain commonwealth status. In 1968, Luís A. Ferré won a close race for governor, spearheading a pro-statehood party, the Partido Nuevo Progresista, or New Progressive Party. It staunchly advocated statehood as an alternative to the island’s commonwealth status, but in 1972, the Partido Popular Democrático, or Popular Democratic Party, returned to power; by then, the island’s economy was based largely on tourism, rum, and industry. Operation Bootstrap had been successful in creating thousands of new jobs, although more than 100,000 Puerto Ricans moved to the U.S. mainland during the 1950s, seeking a better life. The island’s economy continued to improve, although perhaps not as quickly as anticipated by Operation Bootstrap.

Puerto Rico grabbed the world’s attention in 1979 with the launching of the Pan-American Games. The island’s culture received a boost in 1981 with the opening of the Center of the Performing Arts in San Juan, which attracted world-famous performers and virtuosos. The international spotlight again focused on Puerto Rico at the time of the first papal visit there in 1986. John Paul II (or Juan Pablo II, as he was called locally) kindled a renewed interest in religion, especially among the Catholic youth of the island.

In 1996, Puerto Rico lost its special tax-break status, which had originally lured U.S. industry to the island.

A flare-up between the U.S. Navy and Puerto Ricans, especially the islanders of Vieques, burst into the headlines in 1999. Islanders vehemently protested the Navy’s use of Vieques for ordnance testing, which they’d done since 1947.

In 2001, Sila M. Calderón was inaugurated as Puerto Rico’s first female governor. The daughter of a rich entrepreneur whose holdings include ice-cream factories and hotels, she was raised to a life of privilege. As head of the Popular Democratic Party, she took office and immediately angered Washington by advocating that the U.S. Navy halt bombing on Vieques. She also opposes statehood for Puerto Rico. “When I was a little girl, everybody who had power were men,” the new governor told the press. “Now girls know that it is very normal for power to be shared by men and women.”

In 2003, the U.S. Navy closed its Roosevelt Roads Naval Station on the island of Vieques in the wake of massive protests. With the closing, more than 6,000 people lost their jobs and the island itself suffered a falloff of $300 million a year in income. Puerto Rican leaders are hoping to fill the economic gap with tourism.

The former naval base has been turned over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for use as a nature refuge, as the landmass is the home to several endangered species, both plant and animal.

In December 2005, the Bush administration asked Congress to set another vote to allow the citizens of the overpopulated island to decide on their future: to opt for statehood or else full independence. Statehood would bring the right to vote in U.S. elections, and full independence would require some islanders to relinquish their American citizenship.

President Barack Obama has also called on Congress to authorize a vote on Puerto Rico’s status, but it failed to act on legislation introduced in 2010 that would have done just that. Puerto Rico will hold a local status vote in November 2012. It was pushed by the administration of Gov. Luis Fortuño, a pro-statehood Republican who took office in 2009.

Because of the economic challenges of full independence, only a small number of Puerto Ricans back full independence. As a state, Puerto Rico might alter the balance of power between Democrats and Republicans.

Of course, one option still remains on the table and that is for Puerto Rico to continue as a commonwealth of the U.S. At present, Puerto Rico has no voting representation in Congress. On the other hand, islanders pay no federal income taxes and, yet they benefit from billions in federal social programs.

Puerto Rico Population & Pop Culture

The inhabitants of Puerto Rico represent a mix of races, cultures, languages, and religions. They draw their heritage from the original native population, from Spanish royalists who sought refuge here, from African slaves imported to work the sugar plantations, and from other Caribbean islanders who have come here seeking jobs. The Spanish they speak is a mix, too, with many words borrowed from the pre-Columbian Amerindian tongue as well as English. Even the Catholicism they practice incorporates some Taíno and African traditions.

Nearly four million people live on the main island, making it one of the most densely populated islands in the world. It has an average of about 1,000 people per square mile, a ratio higher than that of any of the 50 states. There are nearly as many Puerto Ricans living stateside as there are on the island. If they were to all return home, the island would be so crowded that there would be virtually no room for them to live.

When the United States acquired the island in 1898, most Puerto Ricans worked in agriculture; today most jobs are industrial. One-third of Puerto Rico’s population is concentrated in the San Juan metropolitan area.

When the Spanish forced the Taíno peoples into slavery, virtually the entire indigenous population was decimated, except for a few Amerindians who escaped into the remote mountains. Eventually they intermarried with the poor Spanish farmers and became known as jíbaros. Because of industrialization and migration to the cities, few jíbaros remain.

Besides the slaves imported from Africa to work on the plantations, other ethnic groups joined the island’s racial mix. Fleeing Simón Bolívar’s independence movements in South America, Spanish loyalists headed to Puerto Rico—a fiercely conservative Spanish colony during the early 1800s. French families also flocked here from both Louisiana and Haiti, as changing governments or violent revolutions turned their worlds upside down. As word of the rich sugar-cane economy reached economically depressed Scotland and Ireland, many farmers from those countries also journeyed to Puerto Rico in search of a better life.

During the mid–19th century, labor was needed to build roads. Initially, Chinese workers were imported for this task, followed by workers from countries such as Italy, France, Germany, and even Lebanon. American expatriates came to the island after 1898. Long after Spain had lost control of Puerto Rico, Spanish immigrants continued to arrive on the island. The most significant new immigrant population arrived in the 1960s, when thousands of Cubans fled from Fidel Castro’s communist state. The latest arrivals in Puerto Rico have come from the Dominican Republic.

Islanders are most known for their contributions to popular music, and visitors here will no doubt see why. Sometimes, the whole island seems to be dancing. It’s been that way since the Taínos, with music an important aspect of their religious and cultural ceremonies.

The latest musical craze born in Puerto Rico is reggaeton, an infectious blend of rap, reggae, and island rhythms, often accompanied by x-rated hip shaking. Daddy Yankee put the music on the world map with his hit “Gasolina”; other well-known island artists in the genre are the duo Wisin y Yandel and Don Omar. Vico C is a local rapper credited with being a pioneer for today’s reggaeton stars.

Puerto Rico is still dominated by salsa, a mix of African, Caribbean, and North American rhythms. Salsa bands tend to be full orchestras, with brass sections and several percussionists. The beat is infectious and nonstop, but salsa dancing is all about smooth gyrations and style.

The late Tito Puente, a Latin Jazz master, was instrumental in the development of the music along with singer Ismael Miranda. Puerto Rican salsa won world-wide fame in the late 1970s and early 1980s through groups such as the Fania All Stars, who paired Héctor Lavoe, Rubén Blades and Willie Colón, and El Gran Combo, who still performs today after 40 years together. Famous contemporary practitioners are Gilberto Santa Rosa and Marc Anthony. Actress and singer Jennifer López, Anthony’s ex-wife, is another of Puerto Rico’s most famous descendants. Their pet project, the biopic “El Cantante,” based on Lavoe’s life, was filmed in Puerto Rico and New York in 2007.

Jennifer López is not the only borinqueña to make a mark on the world stage: a total of four Puerto Rican women have won the Miss Universe competition, most recently Zuleyka Rivera in 2006.

The most famous Puerto Rican singer, however, is pop star Ricky Martin, who continues to be a hometown favorite and sells out shows during his frequent island performances.

Puerto Ricans have also made their mark in professional sports, particularly baseball. The most famous, of course, was Roberto Clemente, who is still a local legend and a role model for young ball players. Current professional baseball players from Puerto Rico include Jorge Posada, Carlos Delgado, Carlos Beltrán, Iván Rodríguez, and the Molina brothers, Bengie and Yadier.

Languages

Spanish is the language of Puerto Rico, although English is widely spoken, especially in hotels, restaurants, shops, and nightclubs that attract tourists. In the hinterlands, however, Spanish prevails.

If you plan to travel extensively in Puerto Rico but don’t speak Spanish, pick up a Spanish-language phrase book. The most popular is Berlitz Spanish for Travelers, published by Collier Macmillan. There’s also Frommer’s Spanish Phrasefinder, a pocket guide with basic phrases to help you try to blend in with the locals.

Many Amerindian words from pre-Columbian times have been retained in the language. For example, the Puerto Rican national anthem, titled “La Borinqueña,” refers to the Arawak name for the island Borinquén, and Mayagüez, Yauco, Caguas, Guaynabo, and Arecibo are all pre-Columbian place names.

Many Amerindian words were borrowed to describe the phenomena of the New World. The natives slept in hamacas, and today Puerto Ricans still lounge in hammocks. The god Juracán was feared by the Arawaks just as much as contemporaries fear autumn hurricanes. African words were also added to the linguistic mix, and Castilian Spanish was significantly modified.

With the American takeover in 1898, English became the first Germanic language to be introduced into Puerto Rico. This linguistic marriage led to what some scholars call Spanglish, a colloquial dialect blending English and Spanish into forms not considered classically correct in either linguistic tradition.

The bilingual confusion was also greatly accelerated by the mass exodus to the U.S. mainland. Thousands of Puerto Rican migrants quickly altered their speech patterns to conform to the language used in the urban Puerto Rican communities of cities such as New York.

Religions

The majority of Puerto Ricans are Roman Catholic, but religious freedom for all faiths is guaranteed by the Commonwealth Constitution. There is a Jewish Community Center in Miramar, and there’s a Jewish Reformed Congregation in Santurce. There are Protestant services for Baptists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, and Presbyterians, and there are other interdenominational services.

Although it is predominantly Catholic, Puerto Rico does not follow Catholic dogma and rituals as assiduously as do the churches of Spain and Italy. Because the church supported slavery, there was a long-lasting resentment against the all-Spanish clergy of colonial days. Island-born men were excluded from the priesthood. When Puerto Ricans eventually took over the Catholic churches on the island, they followed some guidelines from Spain and Italy but modified or ignored others.

Following the U.S. acquisition of the island in 1898, Protestantism grew in influence and popularity. There were Protestants on the island before the invasion, but their numbers increased after Puerto Rico became a U.S. colony. Many islanders liked the idea of separation of church and state, as provided for in the U.S. Constitution. In recent years, Pentecostal fundamentalism has swept across the island. There are some 1,500 Evangelical churches in Puerto Rico today.

As throughout Latin America, the practice of Catholicism in Puerto Rico blends native Taíno and African traditions with mainstream tenets of the faith. It has been said that the real religion of Puerto Rico is espiritsmo (spiritualism), a quasi-magical belief in occult forces. Spanish colonial rulers outlawed spiritualism, but under the U.S. occupation it flourished in dozens of isolated pockets of the island.

Students of religion trace spiritualism to the Taínos, and to their belief that jípia (the spirits of the dead—somewhat like the legendary vampire) slumbered by day and prowled the island by night. Instead of looking for bodies, the jípia were seeking wild fruit to eat. Thus arose the Puerto Rican tradition of putting out fruit on the kitchen table. Even in modern homes today, you’ll often find a bowl of plastic, flamboyantly colored fruit resting atop a refrigerator.

Many islanders still believe in the “evil eye,” or mal de ojo. To look on a person or a person’s possessions covetously, according to believers, can lead to that individual’s sickness or perhaps death. Children are given bead charm bracelets to guard against the evil eye. Spiritualism also extends into healing, folk medicine, and food. For example, some spiritualists believe that cold food should never be eaten with hot food. Some island plants, herbs, and oils are believed to have healing properties, and spiritualist literature is available throughout the island.

Eating & Drinking

Some of Puerto Rico’s finest chefs, Wilo Benet and Alfredo Ayala, have based their supremely successful careers on paying gourmet homage to their mothers’ and grandmothers’ cooking. A whole new generation of rising culinary artists is following in their footsteps by putting Puerto Rico’s comida criolla at the front and center of their Nuevo Latino experimentation.

Comida criolla, as Puerto Rican food is known, is flavorful but not hot. It can be traced back to the Arawaks and Taínos, the original inhabitants of the island, who thrived on a diet of corn, tropical fruit, and seafood. When Ponce de León arrived with Columbus in 1493, the Spanish added beef, pork, rice, wheat, and olive oil to the island’s foodstuffs.

The Spanish soon began planting sugar cane and importing slaves from Africa, who brought with them okra and taro (known in Puerto Rico as yautia). The mingling of flavors and ingredients passed from generation to generation among the different ethnic groups that settled on the island, resulting in the exotic blend of today’s Puerto Rican cuisine.

Its two essential ingredients are sofrito, a mix of garlic, sweet peppers, onion, and fresh green herbs, and adobo, a blend of dried spices such as peppercorns, oregano, garlic, salt, olive oil, and lime juice or vinegar, rubbed on pork or chicken before it is slowly roasted. Achiote (annatto seeds) is often used as well, imparting an orange color to many common Puerto Rican dishes. Other seasonings and ingredients commonly used are coriander, papaya, cacao, níspero (a tropical fruit that’s brown, juicy, and related to the kiwi), and apio (a small African-derived tuber that’s like a pungent turnip).

The rich and fertile fields of Puerto Rico produce a wide variety of vegetables. A favorite is the chayote, a pear-shaped vegetable called christophine throughout most of the English-speaking Caribbean. Its delicately flavored flesh is often compared to that of summer squash. Native root vegetables such as yucca, breadfruit, and plantain, called viandas, either accompany main meals or are used as ingredients in them.

If you’re in Old San Juan and are looking for a noshing tour of the local cuisine, we highly recommend Flavors of San Juan (www.flavorsofsanjuan.com; 787/964-2447).

Appetizers & Soups

Lunch and dinner generally begin with hot appetizers such as bacalaitos, crunchy cod fritters; surullitos, sweet and plump cornmeal fingers; and empanadillas, crescent-shaped turnovers filled with lobster, crab, conch, or beef. For starters, also look to tostones or arepas, baked flour casseroles, stuffed with seafood or meat. Fried cheeses in dipping sauces made with tropical fruit are another option.

Soups are also a popular beginning, with a traditional chicken soup caldo gallego being a local favorite. Imported from Spain’s northwestern province of Galicia, it is prepared with salt pork, white beans, ham, and berzas (collard greens) or grelos (turnip greens), and the whole kettle is flavored with spicy chorizos (Spanish sausages). Sopón de pescado (fish soup), is prepared with the head and tail intact and relies on the catch of the day. Traditionally, it is made with garlic and spices plus onions and tomatoes with the flavor enhanced by a tiny dash of vinegar and varying amounts of sherry. Variations differ from restaurant to restaurant. Recently, thick comfort soups made with viandas, such as plantain or pumpkin, have been taking a flavorful stand at many nuevocriolla restaurants.

There are also ever-present accompaniments at every Puerto Rican meal. Yucca is often steamed then served in olive oil and vinegar with sweet roasted peppers and onions. Fried plantain disks called tostones accompany most meals. The plantains are also smashed with garlic and other seasonings and cooked into a casserole called mofongo. White rice and delicious stewed pink beans, called arroz y habichuelas, are also ever-present side dishes to most main meals. Another is arroz con gandules, stewed rice with pigeon peas.

Strange fruit

A variety of starchy root vegetables and fruits form a staple of island cuisine, not just in Puerto Rico but throughout the Caribbean. While cassava is native to South America, plantains and bananas are from Asia and yams from Africa.

Breadfruit stems from the South Pacific and its most legendary sailing adventures. During Capt. James Cook’s explorations of the South Pacific in the late 1700s, West Indian planters were intrigued by his accounts of the breadfruit tree, which grew in abundance on Tahiti. Seeing it as a source of cheap food for their slaves, they beseeched King George III to sponsor an expedition to bring the trees to the Caribbean. In 1787, the king put Capt. William Bligh in command of HMS Bounty and sent him to do just that. One of Bligh’s lieutenants was a former shipmate named Fletcher Christian. They became the leading actors in one of the great sea yarns when Christian overpowered Bligh, took over the Bounty, threw the breadfruit trees into the South Pacific Ocean, and disappeared into oblivion.

Bligh survived by sailing the ship’s open longboat 3,000 miles (4,830km) to the East Indies, where he hitched a ride back to England on a Dutch vessel. Later he was given command of another ship and sent to Tahiti to get more breadfruit. Although he succeeded on this second attempt, the whole operation went for naught when the West Indies slaves refused to eat the strange fruit of the new tree, preferring instead their old, familiar rice.

Descendants of those trees still grow in the Caribbean, and the islanders prepare the head-size fruit in a number of ways.

In Puerto Rico, tostones (fried plantain slices) accompany most meat, fish, or poultry dishes, while cassava escabeche is the most frequent compliment to Puerto Rican barbecued chicken and roast pig. But pana, or breadfruit, is also served here as in the rest of the region in similar ways.

Main Courses

Stews loom large in the Puerto Rican diet, and none larger than asopao, a hearty gumbo made with either chicken or shellfish. Every Puerto Rican chef has his or her own recipe. Asopao de pollo (chicken stew) takes a whole chicken, which is then flavored with spices such as oregano, garlic, and paprika, along with salt pork, cured ham, green peppers, chili peppers, onions, cilantro, olives, tomatoes, chorizo, and pimientos. For a final touch, green peas might be added. Seafood lovers will adore versions using lobster or shrimp. The most basic version simply uses rice and pigeon peas, a healthy, more economical alternative that loses little on the flavor front. Stews are usually cooked in a caldera (heavy kettle). Another popular one is carne guisada puertorriqueña (Puerto Rican beef stew). The ingredients that flavor the chunks of beef vary according to the cook’s whims or whatever happens to be in the larder. These might include green peppers, sweet chili peppers, onions, garlic, cilantro, potatoes, olives stuffed with pimientos, or capers. Seeded raisins may be added on occasion.

While mofongo is a dependable side dish, it also takes center stage at many meals when it is formed into a hollow casserole and stuffed with seafood (shrimp, lobster, or the catch of the day) or chicken in tomato sauce. It’s called mofongorelleno. Pastelones de carne, or meat pies, are the staple of many Puerto Rican dinners. Salt pork and ham are often used for the filling and are cooked in a caldero (small cauldron). This medley of meats and spices is covered with a pastry top and baked.

Other typical main dishes include fried beefsteak with onions (carne frita con cebolla), veal (ternera) a la parmesana, and roast leg of pork, fresh ham, lamb, or veal a la criolla. These roasted meats are cooked in the Creole style, flavored with adobo. Chicharrónes—fried pork with the crunchy skin left on top for added flavor—is very popular, especially around Christmastime. Puerto Ricans also like such dishes as seso sempanados (breaded calf’s brains), riñones guisados (calf’s kidney stew), and lengua rellena (stuffed beef tongue). Other meats tend to be slowly grilled or sautéed until tender.

Both chicken and fish are important ingredients made dozens of different ways. Two common ways of serving them are al ajillo, in a garlic sauce, or a la criolla, in a tomato sauce with pepper, onions, and Spanish olives. Puerto Ricans adore chicken, which they flavor with various spices and seasonings. Arroz con pollo (chicken with rice) is the most popular chicken dish on the island, and it was brought long ago to the U.S. mainland. Other favorite preparations include pollo al kerez (chicken in sherry), pollo en agridulce (sweet-and-sour chicken), and pollito sasados a la parrilla (broiled chicken).

A festive island dish is lechónasado, or barbecued pig, which is usually cooked for a party of 12 to 15. It is traditional for picnics and alfresco parties; one can sometimes catch the aroma of this dish wafting through the palm trees, a smell that must have been familiar to the Taíno peoples. The pig is often basted with jugo de naranja agria (sour orange juice) and achiote coloring and then rubbed with garlic and adobe. Slow roasted, lechón done right is juicy and just melts in the mouth. Green plantains are peeled and roasted over hot stones, then served with the barbecued pig. A sour garlic sauce called aji-li-mojili, made from garlic, whole black peppercorns, sweet peppers, lime, and olive oil, sometimes accompanies the pig. Pasteles, a kind of Puerto Rican turnover, are also popular at Christmas. A paste is formed from either plantain or yucca, which is then filled with seasoned beef or chicken. After it is shaped into a rectangle, it is wrapped in plantain leaves and tied up. They are then boiled and unwrapped, served steaming hot.

Local cuisine relies on seafood, with red snapper (chillo) and dolphinfish (dorado) most likely to be offered as fresh catches of the day. Shellfish, especially conch (carrucho), squid, and octopus, are also frequently used in dishes. Mojo isleno is a delicious oil-and-vinegar-based sauce from the south-coast town of Patillas that is poured on fresh grilled fish. The sauce is made with olives and olive oil, onions, pimientos, capers, tomato sauce, vinegar, garlic, and bay leaves. Caribbean lobster is usually the most expensive item on any menu, followed by shrimp. We find it lighter but just as sweet as the more common Maine lobster. Puerto Ricans often grill shrimp (camarones) and serve them in an infinite number of ways. Another popular shellfish dish is jueyes (crabs), which are either boiled or served inside fried turnovers.

Puerto Ricans love salted codfish, with codfish fritters being one of the more popular beach snacks, always available during festivals. A better way to experience this staple is serenate de bacalao, in which the cod is served in an olive oil and vinegar dressing with tomato, onion, and avocado. It’s a popular Easter dish.

Many tasty egg dishes are served, especially tortilla española (Spanish omelet), cooked with finely chopped onions, cubed potatoes, and olive oil.

The Aroma of Coffee

Puerto Ricans usually end a meal with a small cup of the strong, aromatic coffee grown here, either black or with a dash of warm milk. Although the island is not as associated with coffee as Colombia or even the Dominican Republic, it has been producing some of the world’s best for more than 300 years. It’s been known as the “coffee of popes and kings” since it was exported to Europe’s royal courts and the Vatican in the 19th century, and today Puerto Rico continues to produce some of the world’s tastiest.

Coffee has several degrees of quality, of course, the lowest-ranking one being café de primera, which is typically served at the ordinary family table. The top category is called café super premium. Only a handful of three coffees in the world belong to super-premium class: Along with Puerto Rico’s homegrown Alto Grande, coffee beans sought by coffee connoisseurs around the world include Blue Mountain coffee of Jamaica and Kona coffee from Hawaii.

A wave of boutique high-quality local coffee brands have popped up more recently, including Yauco Selecto, with a new generation of farmers catering to the booming worldwide demand for gourmet coffee. Alto Grande Super Premium has been grown in Lares since 1839, in the central mountains known as one of the finest coffee growing areas in the world. Yacuo Selecto, grown in Yauco on the southern slope of the Cordillera Central, also traces its roots to this period when island coffee was courted by royalty. Other coffee-growing towns are Maricao, in the western mountains, and Adjuntas, at the island’s heart.

You can ask for your brew puya (unsweetened), negrito con azúcar (black and sweetened), cortao (black with a drop of milk), or con leche (with milk).

Rum: Kill-Devil or Whiskey-Belly Vengeance

Rum is the national drink of Puerto Rico, and you can buy it in almost any shade. Because the island is the world’s leading rum producer, it’s little wonder that every Puerto Rican bartender worthy of the profession likes to concoct his or her own favorite rum libation. You can call for Puerto Rican rum in many mixed drinks such as rum Collins, rum sour, and rum screwdriver. The classic sangria, which is prepared in Spain with dry red wine, sugar, orange juice, and other ingredients, is often given a Puerto Rican twist with a hefty dose of rum.

Today’s version of rum bears little resemblance to the raw, grainy beverage consumed by the renegades and pirates of Spain. Christopher Columbus brought sugar cane, from which rum is distilled, to the Caribbean on his second voyage to the New World, and in almost no time rum became the regional drink.

It is believed that Ponce de León introduced rum to Puerto Rico during his governorship, which began in 1508. Under his reign, landholders planted large tracts with sugar cane. From Puerto Rico and other West Indian islands, rum was shipped to colonial America, where it lent itself to such popular and hair-raising 18th-century drinks as Kill-Devil and Whiskey-Belly Vengeance. After the United States became a nation, rum was largely displaced as the drink of choice by whiskey, distilled from grain grown on the American plains.

It took almost a century before Puerto Rico’s rum industry regained its former vigor. This occurred during a severe whiskey shortage in the United States at the end of World War II. By the 1950s, sales of rum had fallen off again, as more and different kinds of liquor had become available on the American market.

The local brew had been a questionable drink because of inferior distillation methods and quality. Recognizing this problem, the Puerto Rican government drew up rigid standards for producing, blending, and aging rum. Rum factories were outfitted with the most modern and sanitary equipment, and sales figures (encouraged by aggressive marketing campaigns) began to climb.

No one will ever agree on what “the best” rum is in the Caribbean. There are just too many of them to sample. Some are so esoteric as to be unavailable in your local liquor store. But if popular tastes mean anything, then Puerto Rican rums, especially Bacardi, head the list. There are 24 different rums from Puerto Rico sold in the United States under 11 brand names—not only Bacardi, but also Ron Bocoy, Ronrico, Don Q, and many others. Locals tend to like Don Q the best.

Puerto Rican rums are generally light, gold, or dark. Usually white or silver in color, the biggest seller is light in body and dry in taste. Its subtle flavor and delicate aroma make it ideal for many mixed drinks, including the mojito, daiquiri, rum Collins, rum Mary, and rum and tonic or soda. It also goes with almost any fruit juice, or on the rocks with a slice of lemon or lime. Gold or amber rum is aromatic and full-bodied in taste. Aging in charred oak casks adds color to the rum.

Gold rums are usually aged longer for a deeper and mellower flavor than light rums. They are increasingly popular on the rocks, straight up, or in certain mixed drinks in which extra flavor is desired—certainly in the famous piña colada, rum and Coke, or eggnog.

Dark rum is full-bodied with a deep, velvety, smooth taste and a complex flavor. It can be aged for as long as 15 years. You can enjoy it on the rocks, with tonic or soda, or in mixed drinks when you want the taste of rum to stand out.

When to Go

Climate

Puerto Rico has one of the most unvarying climates in the world. Temperatures year-round range from 75° to 85°F (24°–29°C). The island is wettest and hottest in August, averaging 81°F (27°C) and 7 inches (18cm) of rain. San Juan and the northern coast seem to be cooler and wetter than Ponce and the southern coast. The coldest weather is in the high altitudes of the Cordillera, the site of Puerto Rico’s lowest recorded temperature—39°F (4°C).

The Hurricane Season

The hurricane season, the curse of Puerto Rican weather, lasts—officially, at least—from June 1 to November 30. But there’s no cause for panic. In general, satellite forecasts give adequate warnings so that precautions can be taken. The peaks of the season, when historically the most damaging storms are formed and hit the island, occur in August and December.

If you’re heading to Puerto Rico during the hurricane season, you can call your local branch of the National Weather Service (listed in your phone directory under the U.S. Department of Commerce) for a weather forecast.

It’ll cost 95¢ per query, but you can get information about the climate conditions in any city you plan to visit by calling 800/WEATHER (932-8437). When you’re prompted, enter your Visa or MasterCard account number, and then punch in the name of any of 1,000 cities worldwide whose weather is monitored by the Weather Channel (www.weather.com).

The “Season”

In Puerto Rico, hotels charge their highest prices during the peak winter period from mid-December to mid-April, when visitors fleeing from cold northern climates flock to the islands. Winter is the driest season along the coasts but can be wet in mountainous areas.

If you plan to travel in the winter, make reservations 2 to 3 months in advance. At certain hotels it’s almost impossible to book accommodations for Christmas and the month of February.

A second tourism high season, especially for hotels and destinations outside San Juan, does take place in July, when most islanders take vacation.

Saving Money in the Off Season

While winter rates are still higher than summer rates at most properties, Puerto Rico is slowly becoming a year-round destination. Many hotel properties are moving towards a pricing scheme of charging a weekday and a weekend rate.

However, there still is an off season, which runs from late spring to late fall, when temperatures in the mid-80s Fahrenheit (about 29°C) prevail throughout most of the region. Trade winds ensure comfortable days and nights, even in accommodations without air-conditioning. Although the noonday sun may raise the temperature to around 90°F (32°C), cool breezes usually make the morning, late afternoon, and evening more comfortable here than in many parts of the U.S. mainland.

Dollar for dollar, you’ll spend less money by renting a summer house or fully equipped unit in Puerto Rico than you would on Cape Cod, Fire Island, Laguna Beach, or the coast of Maine.

The off season in Puerto Rico—roughly from May through November (rate schedules vary from hotel to hotel)—is still a summer sale, with many hotel rates slashed from 20% to 40%. It’s a bonanza for cost-conscious travelers, especially families who like to go on vacations together. In the chapters ahead, we’ll spell out in dollars the specific amounts hotels charge during the off season.

But the off season has been shrinking of late. Many hotels, particularly outside of San Juan, will charge full price during the month of July and summer holiday weekends. Some properties, particularly guesthouses and small hotels in vacation towns such as Vieques and Rincón, have dispensed with off-season pricing altogether.

In San Juan, a trend among smaller properties is to charge higher rates on weekends and holidays than during the week, rather than seasonal fluctuations in price.

Other Off-Season Advantages

Although Puerto Rico may appear inviting in the winter to those who live in northern climates, there are many reasons your trip may be much more enjoyable if you go in the off season:

• After the winter hordes have left, a less-hurried way of life prevails. You’ll have a better chance to appreciate the food, culture, and local customs.

• Swimming pools and beaches are less crowded—perhaps not crowded at all. Again, some areas will be extremely crowded in July and on summer holiday weekends.

• Year-round resort facilities are offered, often at reduced rates, which may include snorkeling, boating, and scuba diving.

• To survive, resort boutiques often feature summer sales, hoping to clear the merchandise they didn't sell in February to accommodate stock they’ve ordered for the coming winter.

• You can often appear without a reservation at a top restaurant and get a table for dinner, a table that in winter would have required a reservation far in advance. Also, when waiters are less hurried, you get better service.

• The endless waiting game is over: no waiting for a rental car (only to be told none is available), no long wait for a golf course tee time, and quicker access to tennis courts and watersports.

• Some package-tour fares are as much as 20% lower, and individual excursion fares are also reduced between 5% and 10%.

• All accommodations and flights are much easier to book.

• Summer is an excellent time for family travel, not usually possible during the winter season.

• The very best of Puerto Rican attractions remain undiminished in the off season—sea, sand, and surf, with lots of sunshine.

Off-Season Disadvantages

Let’s not paint too rosy a picture. Although the advantages of off-season travel far outweigh the disadvantages, there are nevertheless drawbacks to traveling in summer:

• You might be staying at a construction site. Hoteliers save their serious repairs and their major renovations until the off season, when they have fewer clients. That means you might wake up early in the morning to the sound of a hammer.

• Single tourists find the cruising better in winter, when there are more clients, especially the unattached. Families predominate in summer, and there are fewer chances to meet fellow singles than in the winter months.

• Services are often reduced. In the peak of winter, everything is fully operational. But in summer, many of the programs, such as watersports rentals, might be curtailed. Also, not all restaurants and bars are fully operational at all resorts. For example, for lack of business, certain gourmet or specialty dining rooms might be shut down until house count merits reopening them. In all, the general atmosphere is more laid-back when a hotel or resort might also be operating with a reduced staff. The summer staff will still be adequate to provide service for what's up and running.

Holidays

Puerto Rico has many public holidays when stores, offices, and schools are closed: New Year’s Day, January 6 (Three Kings Day), Washington’s Birthday, Good Friday, Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Veterans Day, and Christmas, plus such local holidays as Constitution Day (July 25) and Discovery Day (Nov 19). Remember, U.S. federal holidays are holidays in Puerto Rico, too.

If you are bothered by crowds, avoid visiting beach towns outside San Juan, including Vieques and Culebra, during Easter week and late July, when they are filled with local vacationers.

Puerto Rico Calendar of EventsJanuary

Three Kings Day, islandwide. On this traditional gift-giving day in Puerto Rico, there are festivals with lively music, dancing, parades, puppet shows, caroling troubadours, and traditional feasts. January 6.

San Sebastián Street Festival, Calle San Sebastián, in Old San Juan. Nightly celebrations with music, processions, crafts, and traditional foods, as well as graphic arts and handicraft exhibitions. For more information, call 787/721-2400. Mid-January.

February

San Blas Half Marathon, Coamo. International and local runners compete in a challenging 13-mile (21km) half-marathon in the hilly south-central town of Coamo. Call Delta Phi Delta Fraternity ( 787/509-6375) or go to the webpage www.maratonsanblas.com. Early February.

Coffee Harvest Festival, Maricao. Folk music, a parade of floats, traditional foods, crafts, and demonstrations of coffee preparation in Maricao, a 1-hour drive east of Mayagüez. For more information, call 787/838-2290 or 787/267-5536. Second week of February.

Carnival Ponceño, Ponce. The island’s Carnival celebrations feature float parades, dancing, and street parties. One of the most vibrant festivities is held in Ponce, known for its masqueraders wearing brightly painted horned masks. For more information, call 787/284-4141. Mid-February.

Casals Festival, Performing Arts Center in San Juan. Sanjuaneros and visitors alike eagerly look forward to the annual Casals Festival, the Caribbean’s most celebrated cultural event. When renowned cellist Casals died in Puerto Rico in 1973 at the age of 97, the Casals Festival was 16 years old and attracting the same class of performers who appeared at the Pablo Casals Festival in France, founded by Casals after World War II. When he moved to Puerto Rico in 1957 with his wife, Marta Casals Istomin (former artistic director of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts), he founded not only this festival but also the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra to foster musical development on the island.

Ticket prices for the Casals Festival range from $15 to $75. A 50% discount is offered to students, people 60 and older, and persons with disabilities. Tickets are available through the Luis A. Ferré Performing Arts Center ( 787/620-4444), Ticket Center ( 787/792-5000), or the Puerto Rico Symphonic Orchestra in San Juan ( 787/721-7727).

Information is also available from the Casals Festival (www.festcasalspr.gobierno.pr; 787/721-8370). The festivities take place from late February to early March.

March

Emancipation Day, islandwide. Commemoration of the emancipation of Puerto Rico’s slaves in 1873, held at various venues. March 22.

April

Saborea, El Escambrón Beach, San Juan. A weekend culinary extravaganza every April sponsored by the Puerto Rico tourism board, Saborea brings together island flavors and chefs and draws global culinary stars. Call 787/751-8001, or visit www.saboreapuertorico.com. April 6-7, 2013.

Good Friday and Easter, islandwide. Celebrated with colorful ceremonies and processions. April 8 to 10, 2011.

José de Diego Day, islandwide. Commemoration of the birthday of José de Diego, the patriot, lawyer, writer, orator, and political leader who was the first president of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives under U.S. rule. April 17.

Sugar Harvest Festival, San Germán. This festival marks the end of the island’s sugar harvest, with live music, crafts, and traditional foods, as well as exhibitions of sugar-cane plants and past and present harvesting techniques. Late April.

May

Condado Culinary Fest, Av. Ashford, Condado. Restaurants and cafes along oceanfront drive take the tables and chairs outside and offer special promotions on culinary creations and libations. There’s music, art and other entertainment along the way. Very similar to the SoFo festival in Old San Juan and a very good time. Call San Juan Department of Tourism & Culture at 787/721-0169 or 787/722-7079.

Puerto Rican Danza Week (Semana de la “Danza” Puertorriqueña), Convento de los Dominicos, Old San Juan. This week commemorates what is, perhaps, the most expressive art form in the Puerto Rican culture: danza music and dance. Throughout Danza Week, live performances and conferences are held at Convento de los Dominicos’s indoor patio. The building is located on Old San Juan’s Cristo Street. For information, call 800/866-7827 or 787/721-2400. Second week of May.

Heineken JazzFest, San Juan. The annual jazz celebration is staged at ParqueSixto Escobar. Each year a different jazz theme is featured. The open-air pavilion is in a scenic oceanfront location in the Puerta de Tierra section of San Juan, near the Caribe Hilton. For more information, check out the website www.prheinekenjazz.com, which has schedules and links to buy tickets and package information. End of May through the beginning of June.

June

San Juan Bautista Day, islandwide. Puerto Rico’s capital and other cities celebrate the island’s patron saint with weeklong festivities. At midnight, sanjuaneros and others walk backward into the sea (or nearest body of water) three times to renew good luck for the coming year. San Juan hosts several events, from music fests to sports events, for several days before and after the holiday. June 24.

Aibonito Flower Festival, at Road 721 next to the City Hall Coliseum, in the central mountain town of Aibonito. This annual flower-competition festival features acres of lilies, anthuriums, carnations, roses, gardenias, and begonias. For more information, call 787/735-3871. Last week in June and first week in July.

July

Luis Muñoz Rivera’s Birthday, islandwide. A birthday celebration commemorating Luis Muñoz Rivera (1829–1916), statesman, journalist, poet, and resident commissioner in Washington, D.C. July 20.

El Gigante Marathon, Adjuntas. This 9 1/4-mile (15km) race starts at Puerta Bernasal and finishes at Plaza Pública. For more information, call 787/829-3310. Sunday before July 25. It will take place July 2 1, 2013.

Loíza Carnival. This annual folk and religious ceremony honors Loíza’s patron saint, John (Santiago) the Apostle. Colorful processions take place, with costumes, masks, and bomba dancers (the bomba has a lively Afro-Caribbean dance rhythm). This jubilant celebration reflects the African and Spanish heritage of the region. For more information, call 787/876-1040. Late July through early August.

August

Cuadragésimo Cuarto Torneo de Pesca Interclub del Caribe, Cangrejos Yacht Club. This international blue-marlin fishing tournament features crafts, music, local delicacies, and other activities. For more information, call 787/791-1015. Mid-August.

International Billfish Tournament, at Club Náutico, San Juan. This is one of the premier game-fishing tournaments and the longest consecutively held billfish tournament in the world. Fishermen from many countries angle for blue marlin that can weigh up to 900 pounds (408kg). For specific dates and information, call 787/722-0177. Late August to early September.

October

La Raza Day (Columbus Day), islandwide. This day commemorates Columbus’s landing in the New World. October 10.

National Plantain Festival, Corozal. This annual festivity involves crafts, paintings, agricultural products, exhibitions, and sale of plantain dishes; neuvatrova music and folk ballet are performed. For more information, call 787/859-3060. Mid-October.

November

Start of Baseball Season, throughout the island. Six Puerto Rican professional clubs compete from November to January. Professionals from North America also play here. The city’s Hiram Bithorn Stadium is also a frequent host for Major League Baseball series; in 2010, it was host to several New York Mets–Florida Marlins games.

Festival of Puerto Rican Music, San Juan. An annual classical and folk music festival, one of its highlights is a cuatro-playing contest. (A cuatro is a guitarlike instrument with 10 strings.) For more information, call 787/721-5274. First week in November.

Jayuya Indian Festival, Jayuya. This fiesta features the culture and tradition of the island’s original inhabitants, the Taíno Indians, and their music, food, and games. More than 100 artisans exhibit and sell their works. There is also a Miss Taíno Indian Pageant. For more information, call 787/828-2020. Second week of November.

Puerto Rico Discovery Day, islandwide. This day commemorates the “discovery” by Columbus in 1493 of the already inhabited island of Puerto Rico. Columbus is thought to have come ashore at the northwestern municipality of Aguadilla, although the exact location is unknown. November 19.

December

Old San Juan’s White Christmas Festival, Old San Juan. Special musical and artistic presentations take place in stores, with window displays. December 1 through January 12.

Puerto Rico Heritage Artisans Fair, San Juan. The best and largest artisan fair on the island features more than 100 artisans who turn out to exhibit and sell their wares. The fair includes shows for adults and children, and traditional food and drink. It’s held at the beautiful Luis Muñoz Rivera Park in Puerta de Tierra and is sponsored by the government. December 12 through 13.

Las Mañanitas, Ponce. A religious procession that starts out from Lolita Tizol Street and moves toward the city’s Catholic church, led by mariachis singing songs to honor Our Lady of Guadalupe, the city’s patron saint. The lead song is the traditional Mexican birthday song, Las Mañanitas. There’s a 6am Mass. For more information, contact Ponce City Hall ( 787/284-4141). December 12.

Lighting of the Town of Bethlehem, between San Cristóbal Fort and Plaza San Juan Bautista in Old San Juan. This is the time that the most dazzling Christmas lights go on, and many islanders themselves drive into San Juan to see this dramatic lighting, the finest display of lights in the Caribbean at Christmas. During the Christmas season. (See www.sanjuan.pr for information on days and times.)

Hatillo Masks Festival, Hatillo. This tradition, celebrated since 1823, represents the biblical story of King Herod’s ordering the death of all infant boys in an attempt to kill the baby Jesus. Men with colorful masks and costumes represent the soldiers, who run or ride through the town from early morning, looking for the children. There are food, music, and crafts exhibits in the town square. For more information, call 787/898-4040. December 28.

SoFo Culinary Festival, Old San Juan. Held twice a year, in the summer and autumn, during which restaurants on La Fortaleza Street open their doors to offer food and live music. Mid-August and mid-December. Call San Juan Department of Tourism & Culture at 787/721-0169.

Year-Round Festivals

In addition to the individual events described above, Puerto Rico has two yearlong series of special events.

Many of Puerto Rico’s most popular events are during the Patron Saint Festivals (fiestas patronales) in honor of the patron saint of each municipality. The festivities, held in each town’s central plaza, include religious and costumed processions, games, local food, music, and dance.

At Festival La Casita, prominent Puerto Rican musicians, dance troupes, and orchestras perform; puppet shows are staged; and painters and sculptors display their works. It happens every Saturday at Puerto Rico Tourism’s La “Casita” Tourism Information Center, Plaza Darsenas, across from Pier 1, Old San Juan.

For more information about all these events, contact the Puerto Rico Tourism Company ( 800/866-7827 or 787/721-2400), La Princesa Building, Paseo La Princesa 2, Old San Juan, PR 00902.

For an exhaustive list of events beyond those listed here, check http://events.frommers.com, where you’ll find a searchable, up-to-the-minute roster of what’s happening in cities all over the world.

Responsible Travel

Puerto Rico is still struggling to find a balance between development and protecting its beautiful natural resources, a none-too-easy task on a small tropical island of 4 million residents.

Finding the right path towards sustainable development, however, is now a core concern of the tourism industry, government officials, and community and environmental groups. Gone are the days of uncontrolled beachfront development, constructing on flood zones, and allowing industry to flout environmental rules. Yet, there’s a fierce debate over the specifics of the evolving sustainable development vision between environmental groups and development interests.

All sides, however, agree that protecting Puerto Rico’s natural resources is essential to future prosperity. Hotels, restaurants, and tour operators have all taken note, and have introduced water conservation measures, green gardening techniques, increased use of locally grown produce, and guided tours given with a deep knowledge and respect of island culture and history. Water conservation, embracing greener forms of energy production, and protection of the island’s coast and waterways are all current drives by broad sectors of island societies.

Visitors can help by visiting and supporting island nature reserves and beaches. Also, stay at a resort and play golf at a course that takes water-conserving gardening measures and recycles its waste water. Take a tour with a company that uses best practices like focusing on local culture and the environment and economically benefits the community, like Acampa Nature Adventure Tours (www.acampapr.com). For more information, contact the Puerto Rico Hotel & Tourism Association (www.prhta.org), which is a member of the World Heritage Alliance (which promotes such cultural and environmental tourism) and promotes green practices by industry members. Another source is the government Puerto Rico Tourism Company (www.prtourism.com).

The Puerto Rico chapter of the Sierra Club (www.puertorico.sierraclub.org) is a great resource for environmental information on Puerto Rico, including marine corals, sea turtles, and endangered birds, and delivers up-to-the-minute news on current environmental battles, such as the drive to protect a miles-long stretch of beachfront between Luquillo and Fajardo known as the Northeast Ecological Corridor.

The website also has a large excursions and events section with information on fairs, turtle and rare Puerto Rican parrot trips, and visits to nature reserves. There is something going on every weekend.

Most of the site is in Spanish, except for the excellent section on the ongoing battle to preserve the Northeast Ecological Corridor (www.sierraclub.org/corridor), a nesting ground for endanger sea turtles that stretches across 7 miles of virgin white beachfront in the shadow of El Yunque Rainforest.

Animal lovers can give some love and help find new homes for dogs and cats rescued from the streets or abusive homes through the Save a Gato (cats; www.saveagato.org) or Save a Sato (dogs; www.saveasato.org) foundations. The groups are looking for volunteers to transport pets to new homes by taking them on flights back home. You can also adopt yourself, or just contribute to the groups’ rescue efforts. As the proud padre of a bona-fide sato and gato, I’ll argue they are the most loveable pets in world.

More sustainable Travel Resources

In addition to the resources for Puerto Rico listed above, the following websites provide valuable wide-ranging information on sustainable travel.

• Responsible Travel (www.responsibletravel.com) is a great source of sustainable travel ideas; the site is run by a spokesperson for ethical tourism in the travel industry. Sustainable Travel International (www.sustainabletravelinternational.org) promotes ethical tourism practices, and manages an extensive directory of sustainable properties and tour operators around the world.

• Carbonfund (www.carbonfund.org), TerraPass (www.terrapass.org), and Cool Climate (http://coolclimate.berkeley.edu) provide info on “carbon offsetting,” or offsetting the greenhouse gas emitted during flights.

• Greenhotels (www.greenhotels.com) recommends green-rated member hotels around the world that fulfill the company’s stringent environmental requirements. Environmentally Friendly Hotels (www.environmentallyfriendlyhotels.com) offers more green accommodation ratings.

• Volunteer International (www.volunteerinternational.org) has a list of questions to help you determine the intentions and the nature of a volunteer program. For general info on volunteer travel, visit www.volunteerabroad.org and www.idealist.org.