Resumen de Nationalism and native-language maintenance in Puerto Rico

Sharon Clampitt-Dunlap

• Although Puerto Rico is soon to commemorate one hundred years of its political and economic association with the United States, the Island continues to maintain a very separate cultural identity, marked most distinctively by the use ofthe Spanish language in allsocietal domains. This exclusive use of Spanish, even after determined attempts by the United States military government on the Island in early years, can be attributed to a historically persistent defense ofthe Spanish language by the Puerto Rican intelligentsia.

  The defense strategies usedby the differentjournalists,poets,politicians, and educators ofthe time included the Identification ofthe Spanish language äs an integral part of Puerto Rican ethnocultural identity, the relating ofEnglish exclusively with the United States and the attempts at Americanization of the Puerto Rican, and the subsequent presentation ofthis same language äs a threat to Spanish and Puerto Rican national identity.