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Ending Poem: The Struggle Of Puerto Rican Identity

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These words by poets Aurora and Rosario Morales, Puerto Rican Americans, reveal the struggle of the average Puerto Rican. For example, most islanders do not fully understand who they are or how to present themselves when someone asks, “What is your family’s ancestry like?” or, “Where does Puerto Rico get its unique culture?” These questions spark the idea of a questioning identity. This is because the island of Puerto Rico was formed with the help of many different cultures. Are the people of this island African? Taino? European? The speaker in “Ending Poem” struggles to find her Puerto Rican voice which reveals the same struggle of Puerto Rico to define its own identity as an independent nation. In 1493, Christopher Columbus found the island of Puerto Rico and claimed it to the Spanish naming it San Juan Bautista. The island did not become known as “Puerto Rico” until the year 1521. Puerto Rico was then conquered by Juan Ponce de Leon in 1509. The indigenous people of the island were Taino indians who became slaves after the Spanish arrived. As many Taino indians died …show more content…

In my opinion, this island has grown from where they started but are not fully ready to become an independent nation. The people may feel “whole” because they have built their culture from all of these different types of people that have taken over their island these past hundreds of years, but they still heavily lean on America’s government. Why would Puerto Rico choose to become independent anyway? People born on the island are automatically born as United States citizens and have all of the rights of a natural born, U.S. citizen. Puerto Rico is ruled by our government, has the same rights as Americans, and even use the U.S. dollar as their currency. If this island suddenly chose to become independent, everything would change

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