DISCOVERY VISITS PUERTO RICO: THE CARIBBEAN AMERICANS

[Music] this is a small sugar cane operation near kabul rojo puerto rico it's so remote and rural that many of the people here have never even seen san juan the island's capital city but a lot of the citizens of kabul rojo and almost every other town in puerto rico have seen new york and many have lived in the united states for years and returned to the land where they were born we'll find out how and why today as discovery visits puerto rico and the caribbean americans [Applause] [Music] good discovery 69 the award-winning program for young people with bill owen and virginia gibson that man is an american citizen husband and father war veteran union member breadwinner car owner homeowner his name is ralph and he's 45 years old and looks somewhat younger it's friday afternoon and he's dutifully doing the family marketing for the weekend with his seven-year-old daughter denise you know bill there are a lot of 45 year old americans in a lot of supermarkets but this american is a little different a clue to what makes him different are the things he and his daughter are buying garbanzos which are chickpeas torranjos which are grapefruits and platinos a big green first cousin of the banana and ralph himself is rafael gonzalez a resident of san juan puerto rico well that is he's a resident of san juan now but he wasn't always rafael gonzalez is one man but he's also a symbol for many men in puerto rico and their story is the story of what's been happening in their country lately it's not a big country only an island 34 miles north to south and about 100 miles east to west it lies about 1200 miles south southwest of florida with the atlantic ocean to the north and the caribbean sea to the south christopher columbus discovered it on his second voyage the date is almost certainly november 19 1493 the exact spot where columbus landed is not so certain it may have been here on the north coast at aguada or the nearby town of aguadilla or on the south coast of ponce or over here to the west at mayaguez or kabul rojo columbus called the island san juan baltista for saint john the baptist the name didn't stick over the years people called the island after its best harbor puerto rico a rich port the indians from columbus found here had called their island borinkin and the word is still heard around puerto rico the island's national anthem is labor in kenya and one of puerto rico's most beloved melodies is lamento borincano [Music] lamento borincano echoes through the cobblestone streets and unpredictable pathways of old san juan as though it were as old as the buildings themselves the old town used to be all there was of san juan it's restored and protected now and it'll be here with luck forever it's only about seven blocks by seven blocks but it holds the history of puerto rico's early days in the palm of its hand [Music] the spaniards turned san juan into a walled fortress and the fort itself la fortaleza remains today as the governor's mansion it was begun in 1533 and finished in 1540 it was supposed to protect san juan bay from french and english pirates and hostile indians as well but it was too far inside the harbor to be of much use protecting it [Music] the castle that did serve to protect the harbor was el moro el moro short for castillo san felipe del moro it took 70 years to build and was started in 1539 the year before la fortaleza was [Music] finished el moro means the headland or the point of land and the castle stands here threatening anyone who might have the idea of attempting an uninvited entry by sea from el morro the spaniards built a city wall stretching to another fort on the eastern tip of the old city when it was new the wall was studded with gun emplacements and carved out with tunnels intended for moving troops under heavy fire the wall connected the important buildings in the old city and it had one great gate one door facing the sea this is la puerta de san juan the san juan gate carved through the 30-foot thick city wall visitors once their approach was approved were brought ashore here and passed through the gate into the little collete which leads to the cathedral of san juan the gate itself and the wall were completed in 1641. it had taken the spaniards 100 years to make their city impregnable to assault by sea the doors are made of wood as hard as iron al subo wood the inscription above them reads blessed be those that come in the name of the lord inside the walled city life was lived in quiet buildings and green courtyards it was a spanish life with churches and convents and schools this little park is called la plazuele de las monjos the nuns plaza blue gray bricks which tile the streets were brought over as ballast on spanish galleons in older days these streets knew blood and cannon fire today they resound with the somewhat determined footsteps of tourists old san juan is yesterday and the day before and the day before that all around it on the outside are today and tomorrow and the day after how it would astonish the early spaniards to be told that san juan would one day be home for more than half a million people today it's the 13th largest american city and it is an american city since puerto rico's status is that of commonwealth within the united states it isn't the possession and it isn't a state it's an autonomous or self-governing commonwealth and as such it's the only one we have its people are automatically citizens but they do not participate in national elections 20 minutes out of the city in a suburb called rio piedras in a small section known as coupe alto there's a comfortable housing development named el senorial which means the lordly this is where rafael ralph gonzalez lives [Music] ralph and his wife ortensia have three grown sons in addition to their daughter denise she's seven her brothers are 22 21 and 20. one of them is in vietnam and one has just returned the third is in new york neither old san juan with its 30-foot walls nor new san juan with its craning skyscrapers plays much of a role in the life of ralph gonzalez his life and he's earned it shifts from his work to his home just outside there's a sign that clearly indicates that this is his home that fa stands for familia the familia gonzalez or gonzalez family it's only a small sign but it symbolizes the life ralph gonzalez wanted to live and the life he carved out for himself and is in point of fact living very successfully ralph gonzalez is a journeyman tin pressman a member of local number one in new york he's a lithographer and at the moment he's supervising an offset lithographic press which is turning out sheet after sheet of little circles which bear the words dumbbell from boysen from wesa is the spanish word for raspberry soda pop and dumbo is dumbo walt disney's lovable elephant the product is unknown in puerto rico but incredibly popular in santo domingo where the shipment is heading the life of familia gonzalez began 55 miles from here on an island which is also part of puerto rico its name is kulebra and it's where ralph gonzalez was born we'll go there with ralph to meet more of his family in just a minute as often as he can ralph gonzalez takes a small single-engine plane and flies the 55-mile 20-minute distance to the island where he was born the passage cost just seven dollars each way but it'll give ralph the escape he needs from the pressures of city life and sometimes he just wants to go fishing but fishing was good here when ralph was a boy and it's still good it's one of the two or three ways culabranses used to have of making a living in the days when rafael before he was realm and his brothers and his sisters were youngsters [Music] ralph gonzalez's mother and sister and three of his brothers still live on culebra all within a few minutes walk of this spot which is the island's town called dewey his sister juanita is a school teacher working for the united states government's head start program with a class of 15 [Applause] preschoolers his brother francisco is a construction worker engaged at the moment in completing the buildings for the one new industry which has come to culabra there's been a lot of industrial development in puerto rico over the past 15 or 20 years but not until recently did any of it affect the lives of the people who live on coolabra but now culebra has its first factory the main industries till now have been fishing in the raising of cattle with this plant a third member of the animal kingdom will play a role in the island's history because this factory is dedicated to the production of rats for use in biological research all over the world the animals raised here will be germ-free and their raising is a delicate process at full production the plant will employ over a hundred people and breed three million rats per year that's hardly a thundering major industry but on an island with a total population of just 1200 it can make a big difference the story of culebra is the story of puerto rico itself but in miniature like the larger island it belongs to culebra has more people than it has jobs it's a gentle island the people don't lock their doors the jail house has been used as a storehouse so long that no one can remember when anybody was locked up in it this store belonged to ralph gonzalez's father and when he died it passed into the hands of ralph's brother tiburcio who runs it today [Music] ralph says his brother's store is like an arab bazaar with everything everywhere but somehow he finds what it is you want when the boys were small it was their father who ran the store just as he ran the small farm on which they were born but it was clear to them that some of them would have to leave go to the united states and work for a while before they could come back and live where they prefer living puerto rico the children who come to buy piraguas flavored snowballs from thiburcio now will probably have to face the same decision that confronted ralph in 1938 when he was only 15 years old that's when he left the island of culabra left puerto rico and went to new york to make his life [Music] the destiny of puerto rico has been entangled with the united states since the year 1898 when the island fell into american hands at the end of the spanish-american war but it is only since 1952 that the island has had commonwealth status long before that since 1917 puerto ricans automatically possessed american citizenship every person on this road is as fully an american citizen as anyone living in des moines or santa monica if they were resident in the united states they could gain the one right they don't have now a right to vote [Music] when ralph's father died a few years ago the farm went to the oldest son bonito he works the farm and looks after his mother francisca whom everyone in culebra calls paca paca is 88 years old she's born seven children and seen five of them emigrate to the united states and all but one of them return no puerto rican leaves san juan airport thinking that he will never return no farewell is final no separation need be permanent the reason reasons puerto ricans come to the united states are the self-same reasons that propelled immigrants from the earliest days the chance to learn to make a better life to make some money and to save some and even if you don't intend to stay forever don't intend to change the whole pattern of your destiny you still have to make some difficult adjustments to a new country and the one thing that can make everything else easier is language the simplest ability to make all puerto rican youngsters are required by law to study english for eight school years juanita's pupils are too young for formal schooling but next year in the first grade they'll begin english as a second language maybe the rainfall pattern on culebra will improve and make the island better for farming maybe the rat factory will be a great success and will signal the arrival of more cooperative ventures between government and industry maybe the island will one day know something approaching full employment but it's a long maybe life on culebra has always been hard but much of puerto rico is lush and green and full of growing things we'll visit a coastal town which produces the island's most important product sugarcane we'll do that in just a minute [Music] wherever you go in puerto rico you'll find the same pattern repeated many many people have gone to the united states and they have returned returned not only to san juan and the islands but to quiet stately towns whose history stretched back three and four hundred years this is san hermann their solidity here houses which have stood strong and secure for 150 years and longer [Applause] san hermond contains a church which is one of the oldest in the western hemisphere nobody really knows the age of the church named porter chile but it is certain that it was built sometime in the 1600s today it looks down upon the quiet life lived on the plazas and in the streets of san jorman within a hundred feet of me now in any direction you might walk there are puerto ricans who have paid the price for living here who've had to go away and work for years in cities like new york in order to earn the right to return to puerto rico and others will have to pay the same price unless industry and help in the form of the government's highly successful operation bootstrap find employment for everyone out in the country in the village of cabo rojo just a mile or two from here the problem is even more apparent this part of the island of puerto rico is rich and green and covered with vegetation it doesn't know the lack of water which turns collaborative from time to time into a desert there are farms here and rich fields of sugarcane sugarcane harvesting provides puerto rico with one of its best crops there's also coffee in the mountains pineapple and tobacco elsewhere [Music] this is the way sugar cane is harvested in the countryside of southwestern puerto rico it's also the way the same task was done a hundred years ago or more the task of the oxen doesn't change with the years the ox carts still bring the cane in from the fields in little depots like this one the cane still waits for the trucks to come along and collect it meantime it moves from the ox car to the storage piles through use of a device centuries old a winch operated by a single horse enables a man or at best a couple of men to transfer the harvested cane from the ox cart to a pile where it waits for the truck to come by and take it to the central the sugar cane mill [Music] if you work in the cane fields there are five months of harvesting and working and seven long empty months the tiempo mureto the dead time this is when young puerto ricans think of trying a new life for a while standing around sometimes working and sometimes not are boys who may one day work up the courage to make the move that rafael gonzalez made so long ago from kulebra it takes courage to make a big move to a country where the life and the language is so different and if he makes the move will it work out as well as it has for rafael who became ralph and returned to the security of a home in elsinore and the hard work before the printing press will he be as strong and as lucky the questions are open but the perplexing problems which raise the questions are still a part of life in puerto rico maybe in some future time all the culebras and all the kabul rojos of puerto rico will be able to hold their young men and women hold them and give them a rewarding life but right now they don't until the time comes that things have changed men like rafael ralph gonzalez will have to leave in order to be able to return for good we'll be back in just a minute we hope you've enjoyed our visit to puerto rico if you'd like to find out more about this exciting country and its people then ask your librarian for any of these books getting to know puerto rico by francis rollins and this book maria and ramon by g warren schlott jr be with us next week for another exciting discovery program bye bye bye the discovery unit's transportation and promotional consideration provided by united airlines [Music] this has been a jewels power production in association with abc news and public [Music] affairs