Puerto Rico

Hey everyone ! Today we'll deal with another island, which is Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico, officially The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a United States territory located at the northeastern Caribbean. In addition, Puerto Rico is composed of a a main island and a number of smaller islands. Puerto Rico is a Unincorporated territory of the United States , which means that the President is Barack Obama, and the current Governor is Alejandro Javier García Padilla. The official languages spoken there is Spanish and English, with Spanish as primary language. The Capital is San Juan, and currently 3,548,397 live in this island.

Puerto Rico Flag

 

Puerto Rico map

 

Right now we are going to focus on the culture of Puerto Rico. First of all we'll talk about Food. The national dish of Puerto Rico is Arroz con Gandules (Rice with Pigeon Peas). It’s a rice-and-pigeon-pea dish seasoned with sofrito and Pernil (Pork shoulder) diced smoked ham. There are other specialities from Puerto Rico such as Steak with onions, or roast suckling pig, a dish served on festive occasions. Moreover, Puerto Rico has its own locally producted food like peanuts, Ají Caballero (hottest Pepper from Puerto Rico) and guavas.

 

Rice with Pigeon Peas

 

Let's now deal with Puerto Rican Music. Puerto Rico has several music genres. It can be bomba y plena, Aguinaldo, or more recently reggaeton. There is also classical music, there's even a festival, The Casals Festival, which takes place anually and attracts classical musicians from around the world. Concerning Opera, Puerto Rico is the birthplace to the legendary Antonio Paoli, who even performed private récitals to the Pope Pius X and the Czar of Russia Nicholas II. Moreover, Paoli was the first operatic artist in world history to record an entire opera in 1907. Many other famous artists come from Puerto Rico like Daddy Yankee, Marc Anthony, Tito Puente, and Omar Alfredo Rodríguez-López.

 

Daddy Yankee

The Casals Festival

 

We'll end up this article with Sports and Literature.

 

Concerning sports, One of the most popular sports in Puerto Rico is Baseball. There is the Puerto Rico Baseball League, which serves as the only active professional league, operating as a winter league. The Puerto Rico national team has participated in the World Cup of Baseball, and won one gold medal in 1951, four silver and four bronze medals. Puerto Rican players have their name at the Baseball Hall of Fame like Roberto Clemente (1973) and Roberto Alomar (2011).

Another popular sport here in Puerto Rico is boxing. Wilfredo Gómez Rivera and McWilliams Arroyo won their respective divisions at the World Amateur Boxing Championships. In the professional circuit, Puerto Rico has the third-most boxing world champions and it is the global leader in champions per capita. Some of these champions are Miguel Cotto and Félix Trinidad.

Basketball is also very popular. Indeed, The Puerto Rico Basketball Team joined the International Basketball Federation in 1957. Since then, it has won more than 30 medals in international competitions, including gold in three FIBA Americas Championships and the 1994 Goodwill Games.

Last but not least about sports, Soccer. The Puerto Rico Islanders Football club, founded in 2003, plays in the NASL which constitutes the second tier of football in North America.

 

About Literature, There are famous writer such as Alejandro Tapia y Rivera, known at the Father of Puerto Rican literature, one of his book is La antigua sirena (1862) . or Cayetano Coll y Toste, a writer and historian  who wrote His work The Indo-Antillano Vocabulary is valuable in understanding the way the Tainos lived. More recently, there are other Puerto Rican writes as Ed Vega, Piri Thomas, or Esmeralda Santiago.

 

Roberto Alomar

 

Esmeralda Santiago

 

To conclude we can say that Puerto Rico is very rich when it comes to culture, there are alot to learn there. Beautiful Island as well.

 

 

Peace !

 

More articles coming soon ;)