Puerto Rico came to the U.S. as a prize of the Spanish-American War, and no colonial concubine ever passed to a new master with so meager a trousseau; the island was virtually devoid of natural resources and could barely feed itself. Only after World War II did Puerto Rico move from wretched poverty to the highest living standard in Latin America. It also achieved considerable autonomy under a unique political status called commonwealth by mainlanders and Estado Libre Asociado (Free Associated State) by islanders.
Now the boom is over, and Puerto Rico's future is clouded.
Soaring population and the first real depression in the island's modern history have compounded the social stresses of breakneck industrialization. Pro-independence leftists are attempting to exploit the turmoil both on the island and abroad. TIME Correspondent Laurence I. Barrett visited Puerto Rico to learn how its people and politicians are coping. His report:
In the barrio called Mosquitos on the south coast, there is little movement or noise on the dirt streets under a baking midday sun. The sugar season has just begun, so the men lucky enough to have jobs are swinging machetes in the canefields or working in the Aguirre sugar mill. Toddlers amble about shoeless and bottomless, a black hog wanders out of an alley to confront a tethered goat, and idle teen-age boys chat quietly in small groups. Most of the tiny houses are made of scrap metal and salvage lumber. People have two dreams: to own a concrete house and to win big in the lottery.
Manny Santel is doubtless the luckiest man in Mosquitos. A skilled worker and union leader at the Aguirre mill, he won a $17,000 lottery. So he had a new house built and paid for Senora Santel's sterilization after only five children. But he is an exception, a relatively sophisticated returnee from New York (those who come back are called Neoricans, a term touched with envy and resentment). "My brother," he says, "has 21 kids. Nobody around here pays much attention to the birth control program. The women don't like the pills. They are simple people, and they are afraid."
The teen-agers cannot find work. High school? "It is a long ride to the next town, where there is a high school," Santel explains, "and a lot of them just don't go." Some of them get into trouble. Even in this sleepy hamlet, far from sinful San Juan, police recently staged a drug raid, arresting eight suspects and confiscating some narcotics. "But it is not bad here," Santel says. "It is a better time than before because of the food stamps. People can eat a lot of meat now and they own their little houses."
THE ECONOMY: TOO MANY HEADS