to the United States due to its colonization, the people were not given citizenship nor Constitutional Rights. Upon hearing this as a Puerto Rican, a person would immediately concentrate on that key word "yet". This word gives you hope and all you had to do was show the U.S. that you could do well in whatever they throw at you. It is better than focusing on the anger and frustration you felt during the rule of the Spaniards, plus you could feel the freedom’s closeness. This has been proven to be a false feeling as 100 years of continued colonization by the United States has since followed. What Puerto Ricans had to endure during the following years to prove their "worthiness" so to speak, are nothing more than America imposing itself on another. Schools were forced to use the English language for teaching and learning. This was finally abolished in 1948, but not after almost 50 years of students trying to learn their entire academic curriculum in a foreign language. Puerto Ricans had to imitate their "big brother" from the north in order to "better themselves"(Guerra, 50-51). Before the U.S. came in 1898, Puerto Ricans were well divided by class. Now there was a new hierarchical structure and Puerto Ricans started to blend more. The jibaro was now becoming a sign of the Puerto Rican (Guerra, 59). They all started to associate with certain things that were "Puerto Rican", especially since the Americans did not distinguish between the classes and said they were all Puerto Rican. But many Puerto Ricans still argued this status of limbo. They were neither citizens of the United States, nor were they people of their own island because the island belonged to the United States. Nothing changed until March 2, 1917, when the president signed the Jones Bill. What the Jones Act did was to make Puerto Ricans full citizens of the United States of America. The only problems with this were that the island of Puerto Rico was still not a...
