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...Pico, 1998).
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Puerto Rico is a small country in the Caribbean with a population of 3.8 million people living in an area smaller than Rhode Island (U.S. Census Bureau, 2002). For more than 500 years, this small country has experienced colonial governments, first under Spain's monarchy and in the last 100 years under the United States of America. Because of Puerto Rico's complexity as a nation and as a colony, its politics and government have been among the subjects most discussed in theses written by Puerto Rican students. Consequently, before one can discuss the problem of gangs on the island of Puerto Rico, it is important to look at the political situation of the Puerto Rican people. Once the political situation is understood, the gang problem and the genesis of such a problem in Puerto Rico can be understood. Readers may want to keep in mind that a number of Puerto Rican historians are convinced that the gang problem in Puerto Rico is due to political ambiguity and to the long history of human rights violations of inmates in the Puerto Rican prisons (Pico, 1998). Some social scientists believe that gangs are not a widespread problem in Puerto Rico. Their claim is supported by the fact that the only literature about gangs that can be found in Puerto Rican libraries is in newspapers and not in academic literature (De Jesus Mangual, 2002; Serrano, 2002). Nonetheless, we believe that gangs do exist in Puerto Rico, and in this article, we intend to shed light on the problem from a historical perspective.
Historical Background
Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, and therefore not surprisingly, the diversity of its society resembles the diversity found in the mainland United States (Christensen, 1975, 1977; Fitzpatrick, 1987). However, although there is a similarity in the diversity found in both Puerto Rico and the mainland United States, Puerto Rico is a colony of the United States and, as such, experiences immense political ambiguity that has affected how Puerto Ricans define themselves legally and economically (Fitzpatrick, 1987; Quintero Rivera, Gonzalez, Campos, & Flores, 1960; Rivera Ramos, 2001). The political situation of Puerto Rico centers around the status of Puerto Rican politics in terms of its becoming another state of the United States; continuing to be an "Estado Libre Asociado," or commonwealth; or becoming a free republic (Delgado, 2002; Melendez, 1988; Melendez & Melendez, 1993). In other words, Puerto Ricans are somewhere between being American (meaning being another state of the United States) and being Latino (Flores, 1993). This ambivalent status has created unique problems for many Puerto Ricans with respect to their identity, especially for those from a lower social economic status (Cordasco & Bucchioni, 1973; Fitzpatrick, 1987; Marino, 2002; Quinones Vizcarrondo, 1989; Quintero Rivera, 1976).
Puerto Rican history spans more than 500 years, including its discovery by Cristobal Colon (Christopher Columbus) on his second voyage, November 19, 1493 (Diaz Soler, 1994; Fitzpatrick, 1987; Scarano, 1993). When Colon arrived in Borinquen (or Boriken, the name given to the island by their inhabitants), he found a group of natives that the Spaniards would later name Los Tainos, but anthropologists and historians believe were part of the Arawak culture (Diaz Soler, 1994; Scarano, 1993). The natives, or Arawaks of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, had a political and economic system that, according to many historians, was more advanced than that of any other native Indians from the other Antilles (Gomez Acevedo & Ballesteros Gabriois, 1978; Sued-Badillo, 1989). These native Indians of Puerto Rico disappeared 100 years after the colonization by the Spaniards (Burdette, 1976; Gomez Acevedo & Ballesteros Gabriois, 1978; Sued-Badillo, 1989) due to genocide, slavery, and diseases.
Puerto Rico was not colonized immediately after it was discovered. Rather, the island was colonized in 1509 when Juan Ponce de Leon returned to the island for the second time (Scarano, 1993). This visit by Ponce de Leon marked the actual colonization of Puerto Rico by the Spaniards (Scarano, 1993). This time in the history of the Puerto Rican nation was also marked by confusion and indecision on the part of the Spanish government about how and by whom island matters would be administered (Scarano, 1993). Fernando de Aragon, the...
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