The Colonial Attire of Puerto Rico
By Don Jíbaro Barbanegra

ave you ever sat on a Puerto Rican town's Plaza, on any given morning just to sip on a cup of coffee, read the newspaper and shoo the pigeons as they come to poop too close to where you're sitting? Sans the pigeon, the picture is just a fantastically beautiful picture.... an artistic canvas masterpiece that any zealous Boricua artist would love to capture.

In Old San Juan, for instance, the street vendors and cruise-ship mobs would break silence, with the rising of the sun and the opening of many jewelry stores, souvenir shops and art galleries. Nothing short of a hand-woven manually assembled colonial stamp.

The word in disguise here is "colonial". Why is that so?

The word colonial here, is not necessarily the quaint
XVII Century architecture that San Juan is famous for.

Sights and sounds are perplexingly shocking for your typical American tourist who visits the island for the first time. American tourists come to Puerto Rico because they have an idea that the U.S. of A. owns a little colonial paradise island somewhere in the Caribbean. Thus they come to find out that they can’t get the New York Times just in every corner of the island. This is because their view of Puerto Rico is that of a fabled fantasy Caribbean port established by the Spaniards sometime in the late 1490s.

They become disappointed that the Condado Cerromar Hotel is built inside a fenced industrial city compound somewhere by the ocean where there’s only one entrance that doubles as an exit.

“It just too expensive, not much going on during daylight and so many people don't speak English. We're leaving at noon.” —one tourist told me the last time I was there in 2001.

The truth is that the man who drives this coach, owns
 a 2007 sports car with GPS (Global Position System)

They have a preconceived notion that Old San Just is roughly an eight-by-eight-block section of the old city that has been preserved to its original blue cobblestone and ornate iron balconies BUT that there isn't much in the way of rowdy tourist action.

It’s an ISLAND, for heavens sake! …not a hand crafted little Vegas look-alike. So what if snorkeling at coral reefs is an hour away in Fajardo! So what if the large public beach at Piñones is also a short drive away, as are most of the island's other attractions, including the rainforest known as El Yunque. It’s an Island, homeboy…!!! …a 35 by 100 mile long drop in the world’s bucket.

These tourists go back home to describe Puerto Rico as El Rio Grande Valley with low-income ghettos, traffic jams and crowded Home Depots, and other parts of the condo-landia that’s found everywhere in South Florida.

What they call San Juan’s “colonial character, is the spirit of more than 500 years of continual colonial change while fighting “tooth ‘n nail” to keep its own identity of beauty and folklore.

It can be a place of beauty, folklore and history for visitors with a little patience, a little Spanish and a good pair of walking shoes. It can be a place of subtle charms, where respect and consideration seem to blend in and around almost every corner. From the divinely forged bronze figures at La Rogativa and the high-walled La Fortaleza, the seat of government here for five centuries, San Juan's past is very much presently alive… but only if you look twice.

You can always go to the Bellas Artes Fine Arts
Theater and catch the Perruno String Quintet

Simply begin with the massive "El Morro," the city's signature harbor-guarding stone fort that centuries ago kept Sir Francis Drake and other English and French raiders at bay that during World War II, when it was used by the Americans as a lookout for German U-boats.

Tourists wander between El Morro’s rusting cannons forgetting that they’re 5 centuries old as they climb the steep, spiral stone stairways looking at loose packs of local schoolchildren having a picnic and flying kites on the wide lawn behind the fort. San Juan is the second-oldest city in the New World, compadre! There will be rust… and like Rome, it is an ancient place and also a tourist attraction.

Contrary to many cities in the Caribbean, Old San Juan has it all… dancing, clubs, dining, cathedrals and museums. You can get all these things within walking distance before you can say “Antidisestablishmentarianism”, (Pssst. that's longest non-technical word in the English language.

Whaaat? You don’t know what it means? Well, FYI… it is a political position which originated in nineteenth century Britain, where "antidisestablishmentarians" were opposed to proposals to remove the Church of England's status as the state church of England. There!

Moving on, visitors to Old San Juan can play chess or dominos with the oldsters in the plazas, stroll beneath the massive ficus trees on the wide Paseo la Princesa or catch a free street concert by a local salsa band. If that's not enough, one can always look at the street and try to guess how old the cobblestones are.

The city in SJ built these tables and chairs just to
play dominoes and chess. It looks "colonial" when folks play.

Nevertheless, tourist delights can include the purely serendipitous, like dinner at El Jibarito, a backstreet restaurant offering typical island fare. Here, a large deep-fried red snapper, known as Chillo, is served complete with head and a side order of tostones or yuca, as a guitar man croons for tips. On the walls are photos of famous Puerto Rican leaders, reminders that the island's complicated political story is never far away.

Many mainlanders do not fathom Puerto Rico ubiquitous and eternal Statehood debate. As a territory of Spain, Puerto Rico was seized in 1898 by the United States at the end of the Spanish- American War. The USA gave Spain 7 million in indemnity, ergo… payment by way of compensation from liabilities and penalties incurred by USA's actions of war. But to be frank, the island has never been a free political fish nor fowl, a condition that irks many Puerto Ricans.

The eternal status quo debate of what kind of political status Puerto Ricans want doesn’t seem to end… like an orphan child in the supermarket who’s lost and can’t find his mom. The more he looks, the bigger the supermarket gets… and the more distant he feels he is.

Voters have for the most part nothing more important
to do than their civil and righteous duty: THE VOTE!

The affluent tourism economy that once was a jewel of the Caribbean has turned into episodes of war and peace (not Dostoyevsky’s novel but the socio-political  attributes) complete with a bearded pro-independence demonstrator, chanting slogans over a bullhorn, a curiosity for tourists, a very familiar sight to locals, but a nightmare for the Department of Tourism.

The Condado and Isla Verde hotels have raised their rates, but the tourist doesn’t see the overall cost justifying the trip. Puerto Rican dishes like “matrimonio” and “lechón con guineitos”, are up to four times more expensive in the hotels because tourist are afraid to eat it where the rest of us eat… the “fondas.” When they pay the prices, it’s like running away when nobody is chasing you.

He's totally lost, but he won't say a word

Consequently, tourists have opted to get off the ocean liner, go around old San Juan block a few times, eat some rice and beans with mofongo and quickly go back to the boat. And, because crime, disdain and apathy have increased so much, the Boricuas who really care are moving to the mountains… leaving, as they speed along, the void of love and mercy which were ever-present in the days of old.

Bendición.
May God Bless and Prosper You,

-------------------------------------------------------------
"There's no greater love than to lay down
your life for your friends." --Jn 15:13
-------------------------------------------------------------