society - Hispanidad

Welcome to Puerto Rico, the Laboratory of the Future
This Caribbean island mixes English and Spanish, Catholics and Protestants, Salsa and Rock, all through a faithful
approach to the Catholic tradition: an experience to export

by José Rodelgo Bueno

The subject of Hispanidad is always broached superficially: the same language, some common customs, and little more. An example generated by this kind of superficial approach is the fact that no one understands why U.S. Hispanics have so many children, maintain strong family ties, or have such a different vision of life. People forget the most important characteristics of Hispanicness: a common origin and purpose that constitute the true unity and identity of the Hispanic people. The origin of this people can be found in the Spain of the Visigoths. The administrative unity of the Hispania province of the Roman Empire gave rise to the Hispanic people through the spiritual unity produced by King Recaredo’s conversion to Catholicism. This also gave rise to a common purpose, seen in the centuries of the Reconquista and in the evangelization of the “New World” in the 16th century.

A destructive
or constructive nation?
As Julian Marías asserts, those formed by the “black legend,” who see Spain as a destructive nation (notwithstanding the fact that, second only to Rome, Spain was the greatest builder), cannot understand anything about Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking America and, for this reason, generate a distorted vision of reality that influences these Hispanic countries to the point that it constitutes the greatest obstacle for their projection into history, for their stability and prosperity, beginning with independence.1 This is the mind-set of many aristocrats (Spaniards and their children, as well), fruit of the Enlightenment, which produced, on the one hand, the independence of these countries (an inevitable result that, however, could have brought much more positive consequences if it had come about differently), and, on the other hand, the dissolution of the true consciousness of the Hispanic people. Simon Bolivar’s Masonic idea to unite the States of Latin America could never have succeeded because its was based on an ideological assumption, not on the consciousness and origin of one, same, people. Because Latin America has rejected this consciousness, it has remained at the mercy of political instability, Communist revolutions, and the new capitalist colonialism.

Different origins
In order to understand the current controversy between Anglo-Saxons and Hispanics in the United States, you need to look a bit at history. Mexican society, for example, is the result of the grafting of 16th-century Spanish society onto the Pre-Colombian societies (primarily the Aztecs). Hernán Cortés, the first Viceroy of Mexico, was the first to contribute to this fusion of blood through his union with a native, Dona Malintzin, with whom he had a son, Don Martin Cortés, who became “Comendador” of the Order of Santiago. We cannot say the same of the society of the United States,2 which is not the fruit of the union between British society and that of the Comanche, Kiowa, or Sioux. The origin of U.S. society lies in the Founding Fathers. And this society has progressively incorporated others who arrived later, first from Europe and then from other parts of the world, and also the first inhabitants of North America, the Native Americans. In the consciousness of this white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant people, there is an idea of incorporation of others and, at best, of tolerance of other peoples, which is enormously different from the Hispanic embrace of the cultures it meets along its journey, an embrace that derives from its own Catholic origin.

A concrete example
Even so, there is no reason that the encounter between these two cultures should be marked by conflict. To contradict Huntington,3 I would like to give an example of how Hispanics and Anglo-Saxons can coexist much more than positively. I am a teacher, and my lessons are in Spanish, but because of university regulations, my texts have to be in English. Most of my students are Hispanic, but I have a few Anglo-Saxons as well. When guest speakers come, or when I attend certain meetings, sometimes we speak in English, but most of the internal documents in my sphere of work are written in Spanish. My Dean is Puerto Rican, and her husband is Anglo-Saxon. Most of my friends are Hispanic and I speak Spanish with them, but I also have Anglo-Saxon friends with whom I speak English. So what is this big tangle?

Harmonious coexistence
Welcome to the laboratory of the future, welcome to Puerto Rico! Everywhere on this island, Spanish and English are mixed, because even though at home 85.6% of the population speaks Spanish and only 14.4% speaks English,4 both are official languages. There is a mix of lighter skin and darker, but almost everyone is Hispanic.5 In addition, Catholicism (to which over half of the population belongs) and Protestantism (the second most important religion)6 coexist in harmony, as do Salsa and Rock, fast food and arrox con habichuelas. This Hispanic-Anglo-Saxon cross-breeding is exported elsewhere, to the extent that in a few months the population of Puerto Rico (four million) will be equalled by that of Puerto Ricans residing in the United States, in areas such as New York (1,325,800), Philadelphia (206,800), Chicago (164,500), Boston (137,400), and Miami (135,300).7 However, it is important to consider that the success of this integration lies in the fact that a fundamentally Catholic Hispanic majority (even though it is constantly decreasing) is embracing a minority Protestant, Anglo-Saxon culture, and not vice versa.
From my point of view, an Anglo-Saxon world that distrusts this Hispanic world, that at best tolerates it, that is not open to “being contaminated” by it, and a Hispanic world that rejects its own identity, that walks without points of reference, that is an orphan in a foreign land and that responds with defensiveness, are destined to clash. However, the return of the Hispanic people to its own true identity can remind it of the great purpose to which it is called, to embrace American society in order to make it more just, true, and human and, through it, to embrace the entire world. I have a great hope because, in my experience, difficulties or lack of understanding have always been overcome through the warmth of an embrace.

Notes
1 J. Marías (1985), España inteligible. Razón histórica de las Españas, Alianza Editorial, Madrid, p. 21.
2 Ibid., p. 29.
3 S. P. Huntington, The Hispanic Challenge, in: http://www.foreignpolicy.com (April 10, 2004).
4In the United States, the proportions are quite similar, but inverted (10.71% Spanish speaking and 82.1% English speaking).
5 Source: Year 2000 Census of the United States Government (http//www.census.gov/census2000/states/pr.html).
6 In the United States in 2002, preference for the Protestant religion was 53%, compared to 25% for Catholicism (Source: The Gallup Organization, Princeton, NJ).
7 Source: Year 2000 U.S. Census.