Chapter 5

Class on Thursday was really informative. I learned things in those 50 minutes that I never knew about Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is an island in the Caribbeans, right off the coast of Florida. As far as politics go, there are no relations between Cuba and Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is a part of the US, but the people do not have the same rights as American citizens. They are not allowed to vote in presidential elections, only in primaries. However, to compensate for that they do not have to pay taxes, only taxes for their local government. Their are three political parties in Puerto Rico: PNP- Partido Nuevo Progresista, PPD- Partido Popular Democratics, PIP- Partido Independencia Puertoriqueno. Another thing is that Puertoriquenos do not need passports to get into the United States.
As far as culture and language goes most of the people from Puerto Rico do not know English. Most of the food that is eaten in the country of Puerto Rico consists of rice, beans, and some sort of meat. It is apparently really hard to find a vegetarian meal in Puerto Rico, so I would have some difficulty traveling there. Climate and land wise, Puerto Rico has many different areas of climate. In the north there is rain forest and in the south there is dry weather. The weather there is warm and there is a high chance of being hit by hurricanes because it is an island. Furthermore, their beaches are supposed to be beautiful and I would love to go experience them. I really enjoyed this lecture because I learned alot more than I thought I was going to and I wish we could learn more about the hispanic culture. I think it really puts what we are learning into perspective.