I always wondered why the US took fifty years, after the Spanish-American War ended to give San Juan Bautista ─aka Puerto Rico ─ self goverment. In other words, San Juan had a military goverment all the way to 1952. What happened? What was the issue? There are all sorts of “going around Harvey’s Barn” answers and none of them true.
The main reason San Juan didn’t have self goverment, was because the people were not trusted in Washington. Acculturation is something that doesn’t happen overnight, it takes time, relationships, experiences, memories, history. Washington realized that in San Juan, what they had were a bunch of Catholics, monarchists, loyal to Spain. I’m posting a video below so that people get an idea of San Juan in 1929. The people that you see are still doing pledges of allegiance to the Spanish flag. My word, from Mexico to Argentina people had their masonic revolutions and independence, and San Juan in 1929 people are still kissing the Spanish flag.
Loyalty is a virtue there is nothing to be ashamed. That loyalty is now with the United States of America, took more than a century for that to happen. My mother who is 80 years old, thinks America is overstretched, that the country cultural limits should have stopped in San Juan. In other words, she thinks the final frontier of the American Empire should have ended in the Caribbean.
I think the United States is in a cultural mess and disaster. We are all suffering this, too much diversity folks. There are more Vietnamese living in the States than people in San Juan. How in the world San Juan is supposed to interact? Dr. Farrell have mentioned this on several occasions, America have not had the chance to develop it’s own culture like Italy, Spain, Germany, etc. Is constant migration, constant war, constant grift, 20,000 versions of biblical Christianity. We need a break.
The US needs to put the house in order, do whatever needs to happen. People in San Juan are very worried because the last thing they want to see is a breakup of the US. Central and South America are a balkanized mess we don’t need another in the north. There are geopolitical concerns in San Juan and quiet frankly we see America entangled in a bunch of nonsense. The Ukraine War, Israel Mess, China, etc.
Folks, look at that video carefully, and tell me if Bible Rapture Greater Israel is going to fly with those people. I guarantee you, back in 1929 any church doing that would be burned to the ground. I don’t know how America is going to pull this, but we need to somehow have a common culture to function.