As a Puerto Rican I can relate very easy with this writer. Being born it to one of the last colonies in the world puts me in the same place as this writer but I don't share all of her opinions and attitudes against my colonizer. But this was not always the case. In my house and my whole family are statehooders with means they agree with the American presence in the island and that they would like to become part of the republic. But since I can remember I was always more of a "Lefty" kind of guy the idea of indecency was always of great passion to me. The ideals of the Puerto Rican Nationalist's party and of the Independent party resonated with me and I always had something to say about the topic. Essentially I was OK with the facts that we were subject to the approval of another nation criteria in every aspect of our political, legal an economic themes the only one in which we had "freedom" was in our cultural aspect. I was one of this guys who always had something bad to say about the "yankees".
But something happened when I entered college that little by little I started to change my mind. I think the big detonator was my Social Sciences class, yes this sounds like a paradox. The class that everybody takes and gets a little bit of communism into their head was the one I took and completely changed my point of view from a "fuck yankees" to a "yea if you could send a little more money that would be great". I am still in this debate about what do I want for my country and the fact that elections are coming soon puts a little more pressure but I guess that's part of it.
Kincade exposes that the universities established by the English colonizers were biased and hat the education they provided did not resonate with the island cultural background. Now I am not very sure about how the UPR was founded but I'm pretty sure it was with gringo money and even more so today the university operates with mostly federal funds. So if the education were biased, winch is not, I would not be mad at all because they are the ones paying for it, the least they could expect is to receive some credit for it.
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| UPRRP Tower. |
I totally understand where you're coming from with the whole politics theme. Like you, my family believes in statehood as do I. I've always had my reserves towards people that speak badly of the United States. This comes from the fact that I've alway s found it kinda selfish to spit on the people that help you. Sure, they are not perfect; they, like any country, have done some terrible things and their intentions aren't pure as snow. However, I find it unfair to completely curse them; they have, however, helped us.
ReplyDeleteDetermining political ideals has always been a hazy point in life. Nowadays, this becomes more evident with the growing acceptance of freedom of thought