Spanglish

There is much to relay about the intricacies of Dengue Fever (as I myself learn them), some history about Puerto Rico (main sources: my Moon's Guidebook and Wikipedia), and my own experiences here, but I think the most appropriate place to start is to tell you about a new language (not really new; remember that movie with the same title?) called: Spanglish. Sure, you've likely figured out that it is simply a mix of Spanish and English, but isn't English after all just a mix of Latin, Greek, and German (and a few others)? I was walking on the beach and stopped to ask a group of twenty-somethings who were playing dominoes and drinking beer (a standard evening activity) a question. I asked them first: "Cual idioma prefieren: Ingles o Español?" ("Which language do you prefer: English or Spanish?") Their reply, a resounding: SPANGLISH! They proceeded to speak, flawlessly and nearly without accents, in both languages.

What's interesting is that the language here is really a symbol of the cultural, socioeconomic, and even physical evolution of Peurto Rico, an island which has roots in both the Spanish culture that followed the conquistadors and the American culture that tickels down from the north. And the result is something uniquely different from both.

When I arrived here, in Puerto Rico, it was clear that I was not in the USA (well, technically, I was and still am) but I was also not in Central America. It differed too from the Carribean Isles (although Puerto Rico is very much one). Signs are in kilometers, except for speed limits which are in miles per hour; Old San Juan is surrounded by castles and an ancient wall, within which lies (as I mentioned in my last post) a McDonalds, a Burger King, a Starbucks, and a Marshalls; the poverty rate here is 54% (compared to about 12% in the whole US). On the other hand, a drive through the countryside here in Puerto Rico was quite distinct from the countless drives I took into the "campo" in Nicaragua, Guatemala and Costa Rica. Houses were all made of concrete. People had cars, satellite cable, paved roads, shoes, and front doors. The land itself was strangely similar, but the people that inhabited that land were distinctly different...well, barring their common language (Spanish, not Spanglish).

I just finished reading the prologue to Thomas Freidmann's book Longitudes and Attitudes and it talks about how the growing New World Order of globalization which is replacing the Old World system of the Cold War is characterized by interconnectedness, linkages, by integration. He summarizes these principles by stating that globalization's mascot, or perhaps its seed, is the World Wide Web. Perhaps, then, Puerto Rico and the unique mixture here is a mirror of the principles of globalization (understanding of course that Puerto Rico's integration began in 1898 when it became a part of the US and not after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the advent of Web). For me, trying to piece apart what I see here and attempt to understand what has contributed to it is exciting. Then again, I think I need to work on my Spanish before I can really speak Spanglish.