Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The rural urban dichotomy in the formation of Puerto Rico’s cultural identity

1987; Brill; Volume: 61; Issue: 3-4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1163/13822373-90002048

2213-4360

Ángel G. Quintero Rivera,

Cuban History and Society

Like most contemporary Caribbean societies, Puerto Rico is now overwhelmingly urban. The 1980 Population Census classifies as urban nearly 70% of inhabitants (and this, obviously, does not include hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans living in urban areas of United States and maintaining important ties with the Island). For that same year agricultural work-force was only 4.9% of total employment, and agriculture contributed less than 4% of total gross national product. Puerto Rico's rural-agricultural world is practically dead. Nevertheless, in 70s, songs like La vida campesina, from which first quotation above is taken, received considerable popular acclaim. Why does singing to an almost non-existent world gets to be so popular? How can we explain idealized persistence of a world which is no longer lived?... or does it live in some ways?3 This paper tries to outline, through preliminary notes, changing meanings of urban-rural dichotomy in Puerto Rico and cultural significance of relationship between country and city.