Revising the
History Books of Puerto Rico
We must rethink the status issue
following court decisions and PROMESA Act
By Alex Figueroa Cancel
translated from Spanish by NiLP
Since August, the teaching of history in schools in Puerto Rico is facing its biggest challenge in decades.
The official version of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (ELA), taught for 64 years in the classroom, was rewritten in just a few weeks during the summer holidays.
After the pronouncements of the Supreme Court of the United States and the approval of the so-called PROMESA Act in Congress, teachers and historians should consider it necessary for the teaching of the history of Puerto Rico to be revised.
"You have to completely revisit the Social Studies and History curriculum from elementary school through high school," said the president of the Puerto Rican Association of Historians (APH), Felix Huertas.
Although it is common to find in the texts some information that might call into question what had happened when the ELA was approved, the official version was that the colonial status of Puerto Rico was settled in 1952 was adopted.
One of the books most used in universities of the island is the "General History of Puerto Rico" by Fernando Picó. The text indicates that the ELA is a system of government under which Puerto Rico began to govern themselves.
Meanwhile, one of the most used books in schools is "Puerto Rico, Five Centuries of History" by Francisco Scarano. After explaining the process of referenda and ratification of the Commonwealth Constitution, the book quotes the then Governor Luis Muñoz Marin on the outcome: "We proclaim to all our fellow citizens (United States), the American hemisphere and the world that all vestiges of colonialism have been abolished in the relations of the United States and Puerto Rico. "
The same book says that in the United Nations (UN). the US request for Puerto Rico to be removed from the list of colonies was welcomed as "the territory achieved an autonomous, not dependent. status."
According to Angel Rodriguez, a teacher of history at the Josefina Barceló Guaynabo school, the issue of ELA is particularly sensitive in the seventh and tenth grades. He explained that, according to the curriculum, 1952 is taught in schools as the year of "the culmination of a process to be gaining powers."
"In countries there is what is known as the official story, which is what the government tells itself and is found in official texts, which are those used in schools," Rodriguez said.
He explained that the teaching of political periodization of Puerto Rico begins by the regional government under Spain in 1897, followed by two years of military rule, the approval of the Foraker Act in 1900, the Jones Act in 1917 and the law of elective governor in 1947.
"In the official account, the ELA 1952 is the culmination of achieving self-government, with our own constitution, allowing us to manage our internal affairs," he added. "Now, with all these events and pronouncements by all three branches of the US government, you can even challenge even what we call a "'Constitution" that we adopted in 1952".
"The school definition of a constitution is the highest, fundamental law of a country and supposedly above that there is nothing," he said. "We knew that this was not the case for us, but we gave ourselves the luxury of the appearance of our Constitution. Now, clearly and openly, it has been proclaimed by the United States that "'Look, no, it is not true that Puerto Rico acquired the right to govern themselves in '52. So there must be a revision of teaching of all that story."
The official version of ELA began to be called into question officially in December 2015, when US Attorney General, Donald Verrilli submitted a written argument to the federal Supreme Court in a criminal case of double exposure.
On behalf of the Executive Branch of the United States, Verrilli said that Puerto Rico remains subject to the plenary powers of Congress, through the territories clause of the US Constitution.
Original source of power
For months it was speculated what the outcome of those deliberations would be, which finally came in June, when only three weeks sufficed to rewrite what was known until then as the official history of Puerto Rico.
The US Supreme Court issued a determination on June 9 in which it stated that the ultimate source of sovereignty in Puerto Rico is in the federal Congress.
However, the blow to the definition of ELA was the decision that it did not alter the operation in relations between Puerto Rico and the United States.
That historical change did happen two weeks later, when Congress passed the PROMESEA legislation, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama on June 30.
The measure imposes a joint federal fiscal control with extraordinary powers over the elected government of the island, with what Congress demanded as the authority that had allegedly been given to Puerto Rico six decades ago to make critical management decisions at the local level.
