Puerto Rico American History

Juan Gonzalez discusses the historical relationship between Puerto Rico and the U.S. in Harvest of an Empire, interestingly enough the author’s family were a part of the surge of Puerto Ricans emigrated to New York in 1946. With the signing of the Treaty of Paris the Spanish-American War came to a close with Puerto Rico now under the control of the U.S. along with Cuba, Guam, and the Philippians. In 1900 the Foraker Act established Puerto Rico as a U.S. territory, but it had less autonomy than when under the control of Spain. The Foraker Act allowed the U.S. to dominate the economy of Puerto Ricans by replacing the peso with the dollar and not allowing for any outside commercial treaties. Challenges were unsuccessful with the dreadful ruling

Are there differences between living in Puerto Rico and living in the United States? I believe that there are big differences. I came to the United States when I was five years old. I then moved to Philadelphia for one year, lived in Georgia for six years, and now I am currently living in Maryland. I always go back to Puerto Rico to visit my family. I love it there. I like living in the United States but there are many things that differ such as the location itself, people and the schools.

Mesoamerica have been connected the North and South America culturally and geographically throughout the history. Mesoamerican culture and aspects heavily influenced southwestern United States, being the frontier borderline between North America and Mesoamerica. It is very important to study the relationship between the Mesoamerica and American Southwest because American Southwest contains various elements of Mesoamerican culture and this provides fundamental information about human behaviors, history, interactions, and tradition in America. Our group has selected Agriculture, Architecture, Religion, and Trade as our categories to analyze the relationship between American southwest and Mesoamerica. Fair trade, we will focus on scarlet macaws and how it got traded from Mesoamerica in the American southwest and its significance. For architecture, we will compare the ball courts of Hohokam and that of Mesoamerica. Significance of ball courts and how it got introduced into the American southwest from Mesoamerica will be discussed as well. Religion will be analyzed by focusing on the cosmological beliefs of both groups and the similarities and differences between Mesoamerican cosmology and American southwest cosmology.

Are there differences between living in Puerto Rico and living in the United States? I believe that there are big differences. I came to the United States when I was fifteen years old. Although, I am currently living in the United States, I always go back to Puerto Rico to visit my family. I love it there. I like living in the United States but there are many things that differ from Puerto Rico such as food, education and weather.

The opportunities which are available to every unemployed worker in the United States are training programs, health insurance assistance, and food and emergency aid. With these programs available to the unemployed in the United States, it is helping put America back to work, and giving people the opportunity to go back school to be retrained in a new field of work which they didn’t have the chance to do in the past. Since Puerto Rico isn’t a state they don’t have these programs that assist the unemployed to help them get back to work, in turn it’s causing a big problem for their economy.

The Mexican culture is a mixture of Spanish and Aztec roots dating back to the 19th and 20th century when Spain had rule over Mexico. Their rich heritage and inhabitance formed their culture today with pride and unbreakable traditions. Back before the Spanish had power over Mexico, it was first occupied with an enormous number of Indian groups that varied in social as well as economic systems. Mexico was shared with the Mayans, Totonac, Huastec, Otomi, Mixtecs, Zapotecas, and Tlaxcala’s, Tarascans, and Aztec tribes. Before the Spanish arrived, the Aztec tribe ruled most of Mexico. They built most of what is known as Mexico City due to a tribe prophecy that demanded the city to be established where there was an eagle with a snake in its beak resting on a cactus. That became a national symbol of Mexico and embellishes on the country’s flag

Puerto Rico is an island that is impacted by not having enough land for cultivation. The Three thousand four hundred and ninety-two square miles of this island is about seventy-five percent hills or mountains (Worldmark Encyclopedia of the States b). With the large amount of land consisting of hill or mountains, Puerto Rico has limited amounts of natural resources. While under Spanish colonial rule, the island was largely neglected because of its limited mineral resources. Following the Spanish-American war in 1898, the U.S. took over control of the island. The U.S. found itself in control of an island that produced small scale amounts of sugar and coffee. The U.S would then expand the sugarcane operations and establish markets to use as a viable trade resource.

Mexican culture dates far back as the 13th century. This is when the Aztecs were prevalent in northern mexico. Aztecs were a people who were all about war and honor. They made many enemies going to war with smaller tribes and brutally killed their enemies. In the 16th century the Aztecs Empire crumbled due to the invasion led by Hernan Cortez. Disease, superior weapons, and aid of the Aztec’s enemies were all contributing factors to the Aztecs downfall. Fast forward September 16th 1810 when Mexico gained its independence from Spain Mexico's identity started to develop. Mexican culture is defined by many things, its food, its language, its clothing, its art. However, There is one aspect that defines Mexican culture and that is family life. Mexicans have a very rich family life that defines the culture. The way that family is organized and the way each member acts can be traced back to the very beginning. It's a mixture of the indigenous peoples culture as well as the Spaniards culture. The indigenous peoples pass on their ideas of honor and machismo and the Spaniards pass on their ideas of catholicism, and family value and structure. I fit into this because I grew up on these ideas and my family still practices some of these ideas today.

So much that, "even the U.S. Commerce Department reported, ‘the general nature of the present relationship is one of great federal influence in the social and economic structure of the commonwealth’ (Baver, 42). Puerto Rico has lost much of its policy autonomy as a result of engaging in such a rapid economic transformation (Baver, 42). It seems that Puerto Ricans have "sold their souls" or were "fooled" in to believing that their economic stabilization was an interest of the U.S. as well (Baver,

We are back with seven more little known facts about Puerto Rico. If you enjoyed part one, then keep reading below!

Now that I have explained the current economic and environmental crisis that Puerto Rico is now facing, I will move unto explaining my opinion of the whole ordeal. First off, I will start with the interview of our president regarding the issue. When Trump says he would give us a ten out of ten grade on our help I would

The ancient world of Mesoamerica entered a long period of change that soon led to the development a mammoth city that would serve as a regional center for more than 600 years. Beginning in about 1000 B.C. the majority of the people in the Valley of Mexico relocated to one of two primary sites, that of Cuicuilco in the southwest corner and Teotihuacan in the northeast. By about 300 B.C., Cuicuilco dominated the region, but its heyday would soon diminish. (Sabloff 2000, p 60)

The origins of the current Puerto Rican debt began long ago when the United States and Puerto Rican governments created an ambitious plan called “Operation Bootstrap.” The “bootstrap” was a reference to the idiom of “pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps,” to help oneself without the aid of others; use one's resources (“bootstrap”). The plan was to shift Puerto Rico’s economy from an Agriculture based one, to a more modern manufactory based economy. The plan created in 1970 has, “boosted the creation of industry over agriculture to improve the local economy and offered tax incentives to American corporations” (Figuerdo and Argot-Freyre 187). The Puerto Rican government gave American companies 10 years of tax breaks including low-interest government

Changes in land-use practices have affected the integrity and quality of water resources. In Puerto Rico there is a strong concern about the ecological status of surface waters because changes are rapidly occurring. The odonatan fauna diversity of Puerto Rico was accounted, dividing the map on zones for each group. Active capture with an entomological net was used. There was a total registered of 1752 number of odonatan species. Land use change is one of the main types of disturbance created by anthropogenic activities. Being a group that’s sensible to drastic changes on its habitat, these organisms are directly related to how the environment is affected, making them bioindicators based on their population in the habitat. There is a gradient of disturbance generated from five different types of land: agriculture, urban, grassland, forest and mangrove.

History shaped this relationship largely in the name of colonialism. The textbook (Marston et al 2016) talks about how groups of European conquerors explored this area for different reasons: to convert the indigenous populations into Christians, to find new markets, and most important, to find gold in order to become rich. Proximity used to shape this relationship to a larger extent because of the long time it took to travel by sea and Europe has more power in this relationship because of the influences it brought to this continent. Most of countries in this region now speak Spanish or Portuguese as their first languages and their populations are made up of large European descendants as well. Europe has more power in this relationship largely thanks to the colonial legacy. The second global interconnection is between Puerto Rico and the U.S. According to the case study by Erika Marin-Spiotta (Marin-Spiotta 2016), U.S. has been actively involved in Puerto Rico since WWII to boost its economy. It offers tax exemptions, weak government regulation, and cheap land and labor to lure companies to this island. Proximity does not matter so much since the distance between the two areas is relatively short and transportation is easily accessible. The U.S. is dominant in this relationship since Puerto Rico remains one of the territories of the U.S. Even Puerto Rico’s