Puerto Rican nationalist, educator, and writer Vicente Geigel Polanco on the particular colonial relationship the island had, and has, with the United States.

‘Porto Ricans Resent ‘Navy’ Rule of U.S.’ by Vicente Geigel Polanco from the Daily Worker. Vol. 3 No. 208.  September 16, 1926.

Vicente Geigel Polanco is President, Juventud Nacionalista de San Juan, P.R., Member of Nationalist Party, Member Executive Committee Porto Rican Section All-America Anti-Imperialist League.

American Corporations Hold Monopoly

THE imperialist war fought by the United States at the end of the nineteenth century brought Porto Rico within its zones of exploitation. In twenty-eight years of colonial government we are not indebted for a single act of justice. In Porto Rico there is no such a thing as liberty. There is what might be called a sort of political tolerance; that is, we are allowed to say, just to say, certain things. Freedom of speech? No, indeed. A mere trick to deceive naive minds. The essentials of democracy, the fundamental principles of representative government are beyond our reach. The Jone’s act, our Organic Law, is one of the most oppressive pieces of legislation congress has ever passed. Compared with the Autonomous Charter we enjoyed under the Spanish regime, the latter reveals a higher sense of justice, a purer conception of political liberty. And that was a law of monarchical Spain!

Dependency of War Department.

PORTO RICO is a dependency of the war department. The welfare of the whole country rests on the whim of an imperialist body as is the bureau of insular affairs. Congress forced upon the Porto Ricans American citizenship: a citizenship meaningless to our spirit, useless in our social life, deprived of the moral significance it has in the states. The new status of citizens of the great republic has not changed in any sense our abnormal political situation. As a matter of fact, the American citizenship was granted to the Porto Ricans not as an act of justice to a community highly civilized, but, as voiced by the bureau of insular affairs, as a conclusive demonstration of the permanent occupation of the island. In other words, American citizenship, the purest expression of political rights for a loyal American, was used as a tool for imperialistic machinations. American corporations hold such a monopoly over the land that more than 40,000 small landowners have already disappeared. Our economic situation is becoming worse. We have no industries. And the fate of our agricultural production depends on the humor of Wall Street.

Impose Foreign Tongue.

PORTO RICO is a Spanish-speaking country. Our traditions, culture, mode of living are essentially Spanish. The imperial government has tried, in vain, to change these conditions. The fight against the language–that is the highest expression of our personality–has been continuous and merciless. Public instruction, practically from the kindergarten to college, is conducted in English. If teaching in a foreign tongue is not a pedagogical crime, I do not know what it is. Spanish, our vernacular language, is taught as a special subject! In the University of Porto Rico there are courses on the history and literature of practically every country, with one exception–Porto Rico. Perhaps the authorities think that the knowledge of our historical development and the formative elements of our nationality might endanger their schemes for the Americanization of the island. Porto Rican youth must ignore the doing and thinking of our great men, but she must know by heart the most trivial facts about Jefferson, Lincoln and the rest of the American national heroes. The official policy consists in keeping our youngsters in complete ignorance of everything that is related to our life as a people of a different race.

Americanization A Failure.

IN spite of these tyrannical measures, Americanization in Porto Rico has been a failure. And that is so due largely to our cultural resources. The first civilized community was before the foundation of Jamestown. And from that date on our standards of living have been essentially European. Spanish is spoken thruout the island. We have a literature of our own.

THE failure of Americanization is also due to the governmental policy of imperial America, Porto Ricans thought that America stood for liberty, democracy and similar slogans, powerful enough to lure the crowds. But when we realize that the United States stands in Porto Rico for both economic and political exploitation; when we realize that political corruption has been the most remarkable product of the new regime (the politicians being by-product), the sentiment of national independence has conquered the public mind in such a way that the Porto Ricans will never be satisfied with any concession from the United States short of their complete freedom as a people.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1926/1926-ny/v03-n208-NY-sep-16-1926-DW-LOC.pdf