Lozada 1 Michelle Lozada Contreras Professor S. Mongar INGL 3103-142 3 November 2003 Spanish Must Remain the Official Language of Puerto Rico For more than 100 years, the United States does not declare English Puerto Rico’s official language. This raises an obvious question: Why should Puerto Rico do so now? First, some history: Spanish was the first official language established in Puerto Rico by the Spanish colonizers. In 1898 Puerto Rico became a U.S. "dependency" in the Spanish American War. In 1902, the United States declared the island officially bilingual. Public business would be conducted in both Spanish and English. In practice, however, the last predominated. Until Puerto Rico was granted a measure of political autonomy in 1948, colonial officials rarely bothered to learn the language of the colonized. Meanwhile, they sought to impose English on Puerto Ricans through a variety of coercive practices in the schools. Yet half a century of English only instruction did not succeed in displacing Spanish – only in depriving generations of schoolchildren of a meaningful education. In 1991, as Congress seriously considered both statehood for Puerto Rico and English only legislation for the federal government, the island's legislature voted to repeal Puerto Rico's official bilingualism and replace it with Spanish as the sole official language. The new law was not intended to discriminate against English speakers, whose language rights were largely safeguarded. Rather, it sought to guarantee Puerto Ricans' language rights if they decide to join the Union. It also served to create a political barrier to statehood – an effective Lozada 2 tactic by pro-commonwealth and pro-independence parties. Largely out of worries about the language question, a U.S. Senate committee blocked a plebiscite on the island's status. In 1993, when statehood advocates regained the upper hand, Puerto Rico's legislature reinstated the policy of official bilingualism. Spanish is part of the culture and identity of Puerto Ricans. The majority of the people who live in the island talk Spanish. The commercial, educational, political and social life in Puerto Rico is spoken in Spanish. The public opinion about the language issue is that Spanish must remain the official language of Puerto Rico.
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