Puerto Rico questions Spain's legacy as statues tumble in US

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

DÁnica Coto, Associated Press
Updated 3:30 pm CDT, Saturday, July 11, 2020



Photo: Carlos Giusti, AP
IMAGE 1 OF 12
Baracutey blows on a conch shell outside the Capitol building while joining a group of activists demanding statues and street names commemorating symbols of colonial oppression be removed, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Saturday, July 11, 2020. Dozens of activists marched through the historic part of Puerto Rico’s capital on Saturday to demand that the U.S. territory’s government start by removing statues, including those of explorer Christopher Columbus.


SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Statues, street names, plazas and even the body of conquistador Juan Ponce de León himself: Spain left a nearly indelible legacy in Puerto Rico that attracts hordes of tourists every year, but some activists are trying to erase it as they join a U.S. movement to eradicate symbols of oppression.

Dozens of activists marched through the historic part of Puerto Rico’s capital on Saturday, some wearing traditional Taino clothing as they banged on drums and blew on conch shells to demand that the U.S. territory’s government start by removing statues including those of explorer Christopher Columbus.

“These statues represent all that history of violence, of invasion, of looting, of theft, of murder,” said an activist who goes by the name of Pluma and is a member of Puerto Rico’s Council for the Defense of Indigenous Rights. “These are crimes against humanity.”

Columbus landed in Puerto Rico in 1493 accompanied by Spaniard Ponce de León, who later became the island’s first governor and quelled an uprising by the native Tainos, a subgroup of the Arawak Indians. Historians and anthropologists believe that up to 60,000 Tainos lived in Puerto Rico at the time, but they were soon forced into labor and succumbed to infectious disease outbreaks.

Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/article/Puerto-Rico-questions-Spain-s-legacy-as-statues-15401688.php

[Crowman2009]

1. Glad Puerto Rico is joining in on the statue takedown.

I can think of many other Puerto Ricans deserving of a statue:

-Ricky Martin
-Monica Puig
-Ray Barretto
-Rita Moreno

Please feel free to add some more that I forgot to mention.

[Coventina]

2. Raul Julia!!!!

A great actor, died way too young.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Didn't know he was Puerto Rican. He was wonderful, wasn't he?

I remember learning he had just finished the film on the life and assassination of Archbishop Óscar Romero at the hands of US-trained El Salvadoran military dictatorship soldiers, and their death squad leader, "Blowtorch Bob" Roberto D'Aubuisson.

Martyr Archbishop Romero was so beloved, so cherished, he was recently named a saint in the Church.

Raul Julia had to be the finest to be chosen for that role.

He was far, far, far too young.

May he rest in peace.

[bronxiteforever]

4. Kick and recommend for visibility

[lonely bird]

5. Good!

That should happen all over Central and South America as well as the Caribbean.