Puerto Rico has more in common with Africa than with Mexico right?

Question

Salsa and Reggaeton both African influenced! Most of the food, culture, dances, music of Puerto Rico is all African influenced too. The general population of Puerto Rico is either Black, or Mixed with Black.

The only thing that Puerto Rico and Mexico have in common is the Spanish Language. Thats It!

So you can say Puerto Rico is pretty much a Black country. Now if only you people would embrace that.

Answer 1

Puerto Ricans (or Dominicans.) do NOT consider themselves black. They consider themselves Hispanic. DEAL WITH IT! My god! Just because they are like..0.1% black doesn't mean that they have to force themselves to be black. Please, stop asking questions about Puerto Ricans & blacks. Puerto Ricans are considered Hispanic. They are a mixed race, they are not entirely black. Now why don't you embrace the fact that Puerto Ricans are not black??

Answer 2

The first two responses are borderline racist and demonstrate the tendency of individuals to negate African identity in the Hispanophone Caribbean. You should be proud of all the components of your ancestry, but if you are to negate any part of your identity, wouldn't it make sense to reject the taino-killing, slave-trading Spanish conquistador in you (as opposed to your African and Indian elements that had to withstand some of history's most brutal crimes)?

Latino is an arbitrary, constructed grouping of countries based on similar colonial oppression and shared language. In terms of ethnic ancestry, for example, Dominicans have much more in common with Haitians than they do Argentines (who are thousands of miles away and almost exclusively European). But because of rigid, exclusionary conceptions of race here in America, one cannot be considered both black and Latino, so people are often forced to choose one identity even though multiple ones may be salient. We must remember that Latino is not a race! Many people consider themselves both black and Latino; the two are not mutually exclusive. 50% of Puerto Ricans are of African descent. While many of those people may not be 100% African, most black people are not fully of African descent. If you think about African-Americans, only 20% of African-Americans have no white blood..

Every single country in Latin America has a black population. Millions more African slaves went to Latin America than to the United States; how can these people not be considered black? Brazil has the second largest black population in the world (after Nigeria). 90% of people in the Dominican Republic are of African descent; 62% of Cuba; 50% of Brazil; 50% of Puerto Rico; 30% of Columbia (according to UN figures). And there are lots in Panama, Honduras, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Ecuador too. Many Latinos don't like to consider themselves black because they have a mindset of black inferiority stemming from Spanish colonization. But, Afro-Latino movements are large all over Latin America, so the truth is coming out.

In response to your question, Puerto Rico was directly shaped by Africa, and there is no way to avoid it. People may want to minimize this influence but it is obvious in the religion, traditions, cuisine, dance, music, and culture of the people. Puerto Rico and Mexico too share some similarities - the most important of which are a shared colonial history and a shared language. The ethnic makeup of the majority of the people in both countries is almost completely different, but that doesn't take away the similarities they have. Thus, it is a useless effort in comparing which region PR has more in common with because you can't objectively evaluate these things. What is clear and undeniable, however, is that Puerto Rico has much in common with Africa (as is seen thru PR's people and culture) and much in common with Mexico and the rest of Latin America ( as seen thru a shared, oppressive colonial history and shared language).

Answer 3

You have no clue when it comes to Puerto Rico and the latin american caribbean ( Puerto Rico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama..). You need to travel there because your knowledge about Latin America is way below average.

Puerto Rico like the rest of the spanish speaking countries in the caribbean is a nationality that was formed with 3 historic races : Spaniards (Europeans), Caribbean Indians (Tainos)and africans. In that order of importance being african the least important. Like the rest of latin america, it is a mestizo or mixed race nationality; but the historic base of the population came from the spaniards who traveled from the canary islands and andalucia (spain) in the 1500's and the taino indians who lived in the island for centuries, they both mixed and centuries later created what we know now as the Puerto Rican nationality. african slaves were brought in but were never a majority or a large group, they inhabited only in some small coastal areas of Puerto Rico like Loiza.

Answer 4

That's Right  African were  brought as  slaves to Puerto Rico...we have their influence  in Music, religion, food...

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