puerto rico presentation in spanish

ACCESS THE FREEbie LIBRARY HERE!

Resources to Teach about Puerto Rico

Ashley mikkelsen.

• September 2, 2022
• All Blog Posts

This post contains some affiliate links, which means that we make a small commission off items you purchase at no additional cost to you.

I know many of us plan units around a topic, theme, or studying a particular country so today I wanted to share with you a few resources to teach about Puerto Rico in your classroom! Just a quick note, there are so many amazing options out there, I tried to gather as many as I could, but if there’s something I’m missing, please feel free to drop a comment to help other teachers as they are planning!

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase an item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no additional cost to you. Thank you!

Teachers from Puerto Rico

Make sure you check out these amazing authors and creators to see what they have shared!

• @lamisideespanol
• @laclasedemaestrasoto
• @hablemoselmismoidioma – Check out her interactive foldable resource on culture here!
• @madeforteaching1st
• @frommartztoclass – Check out her resource for San Juan in kindergarten here!
• @magia_educativazbr – Check out her resource for geography in Puerto Rico here!

View this post on Instagram A post shared by María Soto (@laclasedemaestrasoto)

Click here to download the resource from La Clase de Maestra Soto!

Readers Based in Puerto Rico

Just a head’s up – I haven’t read all of these, but I have read books by these authors that have been amazing!! The ones I have not read myself I found recommended in a Spanish teachers’ group online, from others who have used them. It’s always a good idea to preview a book before adding it to your library with your specific classroom and learners in mind!

• María María: un cuento de un huracán by Jennifer Degenhardt
• Cuentos de mi tierra: Puerto Rico by Enid López Reed
• Cuando Era Puertorriqueña by Esmeralda Santiago
• Un coquí de Boriquén con los Reyes a Belén by Lara M. Mercado Maldonado and Armando A. Valdés (and check out this resource to go with it from Made for Teaching 1st!)
• Vejigante Masquerader by Lulu Delacre

Another reading resource I wanted to mention is this one from La Misi de Español! It would be a great addition to exploring la cultura y la comida in Puerto Rico in your food unit . Keira (La Misi de Español) is a friend of mine who teaches in Puerto Rico, so I wanted to be sure to clarify that this set of readings is for Spanish speakers and isn’t in a “comprehensified” style like we might use with novices! She says it would likely be best for upper level students, AP Spanish, and heritage classes.

Research Projects

It’s always great to have students dig further into the countries that you are teaching. You could have them do a research poster project to focus on one person from Puerto Rico, then share about what they learned in small groups, as a gallery walk , or just hang their finished projects on a bulletin board in your classroom or out in the hall for the school to see!

You could also have students research holidays and celebrations in Puerto Rico. Grab the free printable and digital template here !

Channels, Shorts, Movies, and Documentaries

As always, I’d recommend watching these before showing them to your students. Just because it’s a good fit for one classroom doesn’t mean it’s a perfect fit everywhere! I’ve also tried to list where they can be found now, but we know the internet is always changing on us, so hopefully if they’re not on that host any longer it might be found through a quick Google!

• Calle 13 – La Perla (Short Version) ft. Rubén Blades, La Chilinga
• Puerto Rican Masks – YouTube (this might be handy if you’re teaching about Carnaval !)
• Lin-Manuel Miranda – Almost Like Praying (feat. Artists for Puerto Rico)
• El Coquí Lesson Plan (links to audio on the side of the page)
• Children’s Songs
• Había un Sapo (YouTube)
• Afro-Latinx Revolution: Puerto Rico (YouTube)
• Explore Puerto Rico with Lin-Manuel Miranda (series)
• Puerto Rico | Discover Humanity [Episode 5] (YouTube)
• Puerto Rico’s Bomba, A Dance of The African Diaspora | If Cities Could Dance
• Bomba Beach: A Puerto Rico Dance Trip
• Himno Virgen de la Divina Providencia – (Patrona de Puerto Rico)

Additional Resources

Here’s a few more resources you could use in your unit on Puerto Rico!

• Virtual Field Trip ( Spanish only // English only // Spanish and English )
• Country Report Project ( Printable | Digital )
• Gallery Walk Readings & Classroom Display in Spanish & English
• Cultural Reading Activity El Yunque
• Download the bundle of resources to explore Puerto Rico!

I hope these are helpful for you as you plan your unit on Puerto Rico! Like I mentioned in the beginning, I know there is so much to cover, so if you have a video, book, or another resource you love including, please feel free to share in a comment below so I can add it for others to see!

Hi, I'm Ashley. I'm so glad you're here! I love helping secondary Spanish teachers with engaging activities and ideas for their lesson plans. I can't wait to support you with no and low prep activities to help reduce your workload!

Shop this post.

Find it Fast

Spanish 1 High Frequency Verbs Unit BUNDLE | Activities and Lessons

Spanish Thanksgiving | El Día de Acción de Gracias Reading & Activities

Thanksgiving | Día de Acción de Gracias Reading Comprehension Digital Activities

Virtual Field Trips Teacher Guide and Video Demo

You may also enjoy these posts.

Día de los Muertos Worksheets for Spanish Class

Easy Printable Day of the Dead Skull Crafts for Kids

Printable 7th Grade Spanish Language Worksheets

Printable Spanish Calendars en Español for School

How to relearn French, Spanish, Polish, or any language

Puerto Rican Spanish (5+ Learning Resources, 20+ Immersion Resources)

by Marissa Blaszko · March 29, 2021

Despite Puerto Rican Spanish being one of the many home-grown Spanish dialects in the United States, there are fewer resources for language learners online than for almost any other Spanish dialect.

Puerto Rican Spanish isn’t “spanglish” and it isn’t “broken” (despite what some monolinguals might think.) It’s a rich reflection of the country’s history and culture, and a fantastic dialect for any curious language learner.

The goal of this article is to give you a quick understanding about Puerto Rican Spanish, as well as plenty of tools to help you master the dialect.

To best use this post as a learning tool, save this post into your bookmarks or on Pinterest and refer back to it as you move through your Puerto Rican Spanish learning journey.

This article is for Puerto Ricans and non-Puerto Ricans alike. No matter what your current level with Spanish or relationship with the island, you’ll leave here with plenty of takeaways!

And FYI, some (but not all) of the links on this page are affiliate, meaning I may make a small commission if you purchase a product I personally use and recommend to my friends.

1. Intro to Puerto Rican Spanish

2. resources for learning puerto rican spanish, 2a. learning the basics of spanish, 2b. learning puerto rican-specific spanish, 2c. the puerto rican accent, 2d. finding boricua teachers & exchanges, 3. boricua immersion (at home or anywhere), 3a. youtube, podcasts, and music, 3b. books, short stories, and poetry, 3c. where to find real-life immersion, intro to puerto rican spanish.

I went to Puerto Rico for the first time after years of living in Mexico, hanging out with Spaniard friends, and enjoying films and shows from South America.

I was already a fluent Spanish speaker and used to working and living in the language.

So imagine my surprise when I landed on the island… and couldn’t understand a single Uber driver, waitress, or barista.

Puerto Rican Spanish is  different than other dialects.

Its soft L’s, dropped final letters, and muted vowels make it probably the smoothest Spanish accent, but those sounds coupled with its hyper-specific vocabulary can make hard (if not near-impossible) for other Spanish speakers to understand.

So before we get into how to learn Puerto Rican Spanish, let’s look at what it is (and isn’t).

A Brief (Linguistic) History of Puerto Rico

Somewhere around 4,000 years ago, the first group of Puerto Ricans was believed to have come up into the Caribbean from Soth America. With plenty of root vegetables, tropical fruits, and fresh fish the population grew for a few thousand years, probably reaching around 30,000 – 60,000 at its peak.

The language the Taino people spoke isn’t well documented.  So we don’t know much about its grammar or have any dictionaries for it.

But thanks to letters, diaries, and reports written by Spaniards who came into contact with it, we know a few dozen words we still use today were adopted into Spanish, English, and beyond from the local language.

That’s because almost immediately after making contact with the Taínos, the Spaniards took over not only the island but the local language.

In the US today, we think of Spanish as a discriminated-against minoritized language, despite the US having the second-largest Spanish-speaking population in the world. [ source ]

But the Spanish conquistadors shattered the Taíno culture and language so completely that it’s only in these handfuls of surviving words that we know anything about the Taíno language at all.

30,000 – 60,000 Taínos live on the island

3,000-6,000 Taínos survive Spanish invasion 

It took 27 years for the Spaniards to wipe out 90% of the Boricua population by their own records.

The majority of deaths are attributed to mass murder and the smallpox pandemic. But the Spanish continue farther west into the Americas, and Puerto Rico becomes their port to the new world.

To keep the port running, sea captains and mercenaries begin trafficking in kidnapped Africans to repopulate the island.

With the new population come not only new bodies but new cultures. Much of the music and food Puerto Rico is celebrated for today come directly from the richness of West Africa in both taste and name.

The local language, like the culture, reflects the reality of the port at the mouth of three words.

But as enslaved Africans and Indigenous people rebelled against European rule worldwide, the old empires began to crumble.

By 1811, Spain ends shackle slavery. And by the late 1890’s it loses the Spanish-American War–surrendering Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States.

Initially, little changed: Puerto Ricans had no say in their government, no right to citizenship, and none of the same protections as anyone on the mainland. The colony continued to live in Spanish.

But beginning in 1917, three things happened:

• The Jones Act. In March 1917, as rebellions against empires reached new heights and WWI roared through Europe, the US extended citizenship for the first time to Puerto Rico. They could now freely travel and trade within US borders. But why now, after nearly 30 years as a colony?
• US Entry into WWI.  By December, only a few months after extending citizenship, the US began drafting citizens to fight against other colonial powers in Europe. For the first time ever Spanish-speaking Puerto Ricans were in daily contact with mainland Americans in army barracks and trenches.
• The Radio.  As was production wound down by the mid-1920s, factories began to turn out communication technology instead of weapons: namely, the radio. As Americans emerged victorious for the first time on the international playing field, Anglo entertainment made its debut.

And with those things, came some big language changes in Puerto Rico.

(A full list of Anglicisms in Puerto Rican Spanish would probably take up a PhD thesis. But those are some of my own favorites.)

At the end of the day, the best way to get to know Puerto Rico is through its language. Through it, you’ll not only find layers and layers of borrowed words and historic influence, but you’ll be able to access more writings, records, music, and food than you ever could in English.

So keep reading, and get excited for your deep dive into the language.

Want to learn more about the history of Puerto Rico? Here are the books I recommend:

• War Against All Puerto Ricans (available in Spanish as Guerra Contras Todos los Puertorriqueños )
• The Battle for Paradise (available in Spanish as La Batalla por el Paraiso )
• The Tainos: Rise and Decline of the People Who Greeted Columbus

A Tale of Two Dialects

Like we’ve said above, Puerto Rico’s history have tremendously influenced the language–from its indigenous and African roots to its modern English.

But as we continue into the future, the presence of English in almost every Puerto Rican’s life is changing the language faster in faster.

In fact, there are  two distinct dialects of Puerto Rican Spanish.

Unfortunately, there haven’t been any linguistic studies that I know about, but we can always play linguist and study some of the evidence at hand. Let me point out a few differences from this video.

(Note: Eli doesn’t speak Spanish, but there are still a few things we can study here.)

• 0:13 – Listen to how Iván says the word “here today” and “the other day”. While his accent is almost undetectable, certain sounds (er, ay) are a bit more nasal than they are when Eli says those same words. (Also at 1:17 with  “we’re”, “never”. Contrast it to Eli’s accent in between those two points.) Those differences in English accents will also likely exist when they’re speaking in Spanish.
• 2:15   – Eli talks about how earlier in his life, his connection to Puerto Rico was through his parents and grandparents. Just like the music has changed over the past decades, so has the language. Continent-born Puerto Ricans who are learning Spanish from the older generations are likely using words or slang that were popular in the 60s or 70s and not more contemporary slang. (Imagine how you would speak English if you were taught by someone from 70 years ago!)

Why is this important for what we’re learning here?

If you come from the continent and hear different words or patterns of speaking than you hear on the island, that doesn’t make those ways wrong! You’re simply hearing a linguistic variation, similar to how Puerto Rican Spanish is different than Mexican Spanish is different than Colombian Spanish.

Neither is wrong and neither is right, but as you begin to learn Spanish you can feel encouraged to adopt whichever variation you’re most comfortable with.

Spanglish (What it Is and Isn't)

“They don’t really speak Spanish! It’s just Spanglish.”

The co-existence of English and Spanish in nearly every corner of Boricua life has meant that many young Puerto Ricans are bilingual (and many are monolingual English speakers).

But do English-influenced words mean that Puerto Rican Spanish mean that it’s a worse Spanish than, say, the Spanish from Madrid?

Or that they’re not even speaking a real language–just a deformed, mashed-up version of two languages?

For decades in the United States, it was seen that way. Spanglish was an insult and a problem to be fixed–neither “proper English” nor “good Spanish”.

But over the past decades, Latinos and linguists have worked hard to educate the general public on what Spanglish  actually is: an amazing demonstration of bilingualism.

Don’t believe me? Check out the video below (and if you’re not already bilingual, turn on the subtitles in either English or Spanish)

Spanglish exists to serve many purposes: to speak faster, to use a word unique to one of the languages, or even just because you like a certain filler word.

But even outside of everyday conversations, Spanglish is establishing its place in the creative world in works like the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao or the songs of hugely celebrated rapper Bad Bunny.

But if Puerto Rican Spanish has such a heavy English influence, couldn’t a person from Spain consider it just a form of Spanglish?

Nope. Here’s why.

Languages have individual predictable patterns and structures, but when someone speaks Spanglish they borrow from two different patterns and structures.

Given enough time, Spanglish could fuse those different systems into one and become its own third language.

But for right now–Puerto Rican Spanish isn’t Spanglish. It’s a dialect of Spanish, just like the dialects from any country.

But even if it was Spanglish? No hay nothing wrong con un poquito de code-switching.

Resources for Learning Puerto Rican Spanish

Now, let’s figure out you’re starting point so you can begin learning Puerto Rican Spanish.

Maybe you’re not Puerto Rican (I’m not).

Maybe you are Puerto Rican (like many of my neighbors).

Either way, we need you through two phases: (1) learning the basics that all Spanish dialects have in common and (2) making sure your Spanish is as Puerto Rican as you want it to be.

The basic fact of it is that there are incredibly few Puerto Rican-specific resources online. So if you don’t already speak Spanish, you’ll need to start with some more generic resources.

If you already speak Spanish,  you can skip to the Puerto Rican-specific part of this post .

But if you haven’t mastered Spanish yet, keep reading.

Learning Spanish Basics

Because Puerto Rican Spanish resources are mostly about the dialect itself (and not about how to learn it from zero), you’ll need to start here if you’re not already comfortable with a different dialect in Spanish.

Here are 3 resources you can bookmark and return to in order to help you learn Spanish (or improve your existing language).

Are you Puerto Rican… but don’t really speak the language?

Well, you’re not alone. Puerto Ricans have been historically disenfranchised from their language, culture, and identity . And reclaiming that as an adult is a completely badass decision.

Check out this heritage language FAQ to learn more about what will make you unique as a Spanish learner, and the Relearn A Language YouTube Channel if you want to feel a little less alone in your journey.

Want to improve your existing Spanish?

Check out our guide to advanced Spanish , perfect for the intermediate plateau and beyond.

Learning Spanish from zero?

Check out our massive massive massive guide for how to learn Spanish from scratch.

This guide will help you put together a roadmap for your journey into learning Spanish basics, as well as give you practical tips for incorporating a specific dialect.

But since this post is mostly about learning Puerto Rican Spanish, now we can dive into all of the dialect-specific tools out there!

Learning Puerto Rican-Specific Spanish

One of the big misconceptions about Puerto Rican Spanish is that the only thing different about it is “the slang”.

Sure, there are plenty of fantastically-local words and phrases (like you can see in the below videos). 

But really, the differences are so fundamental that you’d be hard-pressed to navigate a restaurant menu in Puerto Rico without knowing the local language.

Here are a few of the resources Spanish speakers (or students) can buy to familiarize themselves with Puerto Rican Spanish.

The Puerto Rican Accent

When I was first learning Puerto Rican Spanish, one of the biggest things that set me apart from my east coast neighbors was how different our accents were.

But there was no information online.

In a desperate attempt to understand what I could do to make myself fit in a bit better, I hired and worked with an accent coach to start uncovering the Puerto Rican accent.

Everything in this section is original to this website, and will hopefully help you understand a bit more about what makes this Spanish variant so smooth and soft.

Vowel Sounds

The first (and arguably easiest) way to see what makes the Puerto Rican accent different is by comparing it to two different Mexican accents. I then added how I would say the same words while using my most-Gringa accent. (No, I don’t really talk like this.)

In this recording, I had friends say the same words to use the vowels A, E, I, O, and U.

Now: how can we really represent these differences so we can talk about them concretely?

With an IPA chart of course!

This handy invention creates a map of the insides of our mouths. Check out this example (below) and repeat these 4 words: see, tap, thought, goose.

We call these the 4 “cardinal points” of English IPA–the further most points in your mouth. (If you say them in a circle first going counter-clockwise then clockwise, you’ll be able to read the map more easily.)

Now, the trick with mapping out Puerto Rican vowels (in contrast with the Mexican and American vowels) is to feel them in your mouth while speaking and plant them on the IPA map.

Here’s what I found between the two types of Spanish:

Listen with the recording and try to feel the difference between the Mexican and Puerto Rican accents in your mouth by repeating after the tape.

You can even record yourself to hone in your exact vowels.

(Credit to Puerto Rican Spanish 101 for some help on this!)

To make this map, I had native Spanish speakers in Mexico and Puerto Rico say the same 4 words, which together consisted of the 5 vowels found in Spanish.

I then did my best to imitate their accents to discover where they were placing their tongue in order to make the sound.

Then, I mapped!

(You can replicate this by listening to my recordings, pausing after every word, and mapping your own vowel quadrilateral.)

The most interesting thing was how much more centered Puerto Rican vowels were. My tongue was doing way less work than it was in my Mexican Spanish!

Next, we went through some possible diphthongs to see if that was true for other vowel sounds:

Again: I went through the recording and tested it out with my own mouth, drawing sliding lines from one vowel to another as I went.

And again I found the same thing–my tongue was doing way less work than it was in Mexican Spanish!

(And once again, you can try these out in your own mouth. Now that you understand how the “map” works, say the words slowly and aim your tongue from one vowel space to another.)

But what if we compare that diagram to the same 5 sounds in American English?

Here’s my map overlapped with a General American English Vowel Quadrilateral.

(To be fair to English, we have around 10 additional vowel sounds that aren’t mapped here. If you say the words “cut” or “the” you’ll find a distinct middle sound, a shwa, which Spanish doesn’t come close to.)

But as you can see, it’s not that Puerto Rican Spanish is somehow more “English” or “Spanglish”.

It’s simply it’s own unique accent!

What can we conclude about Puerto Rican vowels?

• If you speak another dialect of Spanish,  you might find them much more centered in the mouth. If you try to replicate them, your tongue will probably be working a lot less.
• If you speak English,  you’ll have to be work hard to only stick to the 5 Spanish vowels  and place them in the right places in your mouth without defaulting to sounds that don’t exist in Spanish at all.

To practice these boricua vowel sounds while you speak, relax your tongue in your mouth while speaking and don’t stress about hitting those cardinal points as much as you would in English or other types of Spanish.

This brings us to our next point….

Consonant Sounds

Now that we know what the tongue is up to when making vowel sounds, we can explore some consonant sounds!

Because of how our mouths make consonants, they’re a bit harder to chart than vowels.

But keeping in mind how relaxed and centered our tongue is in our mouth while making those vowel sounds, we can explore 2 of the most iconic sounds in Puerto Rican Spanish.

Click the video for <5 second clips we can use to demonstrate the sounds we’ll be talking about.

“Mi nombre e s Ireli s Pére z Cintron”

Right away, we can hear one of the most common sound changes in Puerto Rican Spanish: a softening ending. In the first sentence of this video, we can hear right away that the S or Z sound is aspirated (meaning it’s pronounced similar to the English H as in “house”).

Bienveni d o s a Rio de Janeiro en Brazil, probablemente una de las ciuda d e s más hermosas del mundo.

On top of the softening endings in many of these words, you can also hear another characteristic of Puerto Rican Spanish: a contracted D when it appears between two vowels (turning “bienvenidos” into bienveni’o’ )

….y hoy, po r prime r a vez, yo voy a mostra r la versión alpha…

And finally, probably the most iconic sound in Puerto Rican Spanish: an R that softens to either an aspirated sound (again, like the English H) or to a L-like sound.

This happens in two places: at the end of words or in between two vowels. 

To wrap this section up, I’ll mention that accent isn’t everything.

In theory, if your accent is so good people think you’re a native, you’ll then run into a new problem when people wonder why a native will sometimes make grammar mistakes.

So don’t stress. But if you’re curious like me, you can dig endlessly into things like pitch, speed, and intonation that we haven’t had room to touch on here.

Finding Boricua Teachers & Exchanges

Now I’m not going to lie–finding Puerto Rican Spanish teachers is hard.

Even in an online world saturated with Spanish teachers, finding some from la isla largely depends on luck and persistence.

Here are a few places you can check from time to time. (And my advice is that if you don’t find any now, you try again in a few months.)

The largest online directory of language teachers. Filter first by language (Spanish) then the location (Puerto Rico). Make sure you search for both “professional teachers” and “community tutors”. ( Get $10 off your first class here. )

Preply & Verbling

Two additional online directories. They’re smaller than iTalki and harder to search through for something particular, but worth a shot.

r/Puerto Rico & r/Language Exchanges

These Reddit forums are ideal for getting in touch with native speakers for exchanges. However, most internet-using Puerto Ricans also speak fluent English, so it’ll be hard to find someone who is willing to work for trade. (Finding a paid tutor may be easier, although a professional one unlikely.)

Instagram or Facebook

Finally, check hashtags and groups on Instagram and Facebook. There are dozens of #polyglot #languageexchange or #boricua -related groups and hashtags to check out where you might have good luck.

Now if you can only find an inexperienced tutor but still want to work with them, we’ve built two free tools for that.

You can use the below lists of exchange topics to make a conversation with any exchange partner, including untrained tutors, interesting and productive.

Popular Exchange Topics and Vocab Building Topics

To use these menus:

• Decide on a topic for the day
• (If working with an exchange partner, split your time up 30min / 30min between the two languages.)
• Partner 1 asks a question (translating it into Spanish) and then Partner 2 answers it. After Partner 2 has answered it, Partner 1 can respond or also answer it.
• Partner 2 selects the next question (again translating it into Spanish) for Partner 1 to answer, then Partner 2 answers it.

As a bonus type, I suggest correcting each other in the chat (as well as giving the other person new vocabulary) and then writing down the notes you were given or putting them in a flashcard app like Anki.

Now, if online classes or exchanges aren’t for you, we’ll go into where to find real-life immersion in the next section in this article–so keep reading!

Boricua Immersion Resources

Now we’re getting to the fun part.

You’ve probably heard that old myth that “just going there and learning through immersion” is the only or best way to learn a language right?

Well, on top of other reasons that that’s a language myth, I’ve found that the best way to learn through immersion is actually at-home immersion!

So let’s get you set up to start mastering Boricua Spanish the fun way: organically and through culture.

We also have a free immersion mini-course where you can use all of the resources on this page in a fun, productive language learning plan.

Sign up for free, then continue with this article and start exploring your immersion options!

Puerto Rican YouTubers (Educational)

• Vegan Puerto Rico (Nutrition & Cooking)
• Taller Boricua/Puerto Rican Workshop Inc. (Fine Arts & History)
• Mochileando (Travel)
• compostapr (farming & ecology)
• Javier Camacho (tech & engineering)

Puerto Rican YouTubers (Entertainment)

• SEÑORITA YANYI (lifestyle vlogger)
• El Tony (men’s lifestyle)
• Rami (lifestyle vlogger)
• DayaVera (lifestyle vlogger)
• COREANO LOCO TV  (men’s lifestyle)
• beautybyjaass (beauty)
• Chente Ydrach (comedy)
• tripletapr (animated comedy)
• Kevo Cabanas (Travel)
• VIP3R (gaming)
• Estado Crítico (political satire)
• Yo soy un Gamer (gaming)

Podcasts & Music

Puerto Rican Podcasts (Educational)

• La Brega (cultural)
• En que quedó (journalism features)
• Jay Fonseca (personal/daily editorial)
• Plan de Contingencia (news and politics local to PR)
• Puestos pa’l Problema (editorial news)
• HIghlight This (professional education)
• Torres Gotay Entrevista (long-form interviews with political figures)

Puerto Rican Podcasts (Entertainment)

• Hablando Claro Podcast (comedy)
• Crimepod PR (true crime)
• Geek Lasagna (tech, anime, games, movies, and geek life)
• 84 Historias (talk show)
• Chen Ydrach (comedy)
• Nación Chancleta (political satire)
• The Birra Lounge (craft beer)
• Siempre es Lunes (comedy)

American Spanish Honorable Mentions

• El WaPo  (news from around the world with plenty of American hispanohablantes)
• TeleMundo (American hispanohablante news briefs in a variety of dialects)

English Language Honorable Mentions

• Spanish con Salsa (language learning podcast which highlights Caribbean Spanish variations)
• TimeStorm (audio drama that teaches kids Puerto Rican history)
• Puerto Rico Foward (35 episodes; an archived documentary about the historic context of Puerto Rico’s current political and economic situation)

Puerto Rican Music

Music is Puerto Rico’s best-known export, and many of these names are going to sound really familiar. But let’s do a round-up to make sure you can build some amazing playlists.

The Ones You’ve Heard of

• 20th Century: Tito Puente
• 2000s: JLo, Mark Anthony, Ricky Martin
• 2010s: Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee, Residente, Lin Manuel
• 2020s: Bad Bunny, Osuna

The Ones You Haven’t

• Indie & Rock: Black Guayaba, Webo, Los Walters, Epilogio, Alegria Rampante, Campo-Formio, Doggos, Polbo, Puya, Polem
• Reggae & Ska: PJ Sin Suela, International Dub Ambassadors
• Pop & Electronica: Bascabulla, Fuerte Billete

Books, Short Stories, and Poetry

Interested in diving into Puerto Rican literature? Here are some places to start.

Printed Works

• La amante de Gardel , Mayra Santo Febres
• x/ex/exis (poemas para la nación) , Raquel Salas Rivera
• Felices Días, Tío Sergio , Magali Garcia Ramis
• La llamarada , Enrique Laguerre
• Mundo cruel , Luis Negron y Suzanne Jill Levine
• La casa de la laguna , Rosario Ferré
• La Guaracha del Macho Camacho , Luis Rafael Sánchez

Free Digital Works via OpenLibrary.org

• “Cuentos : an anthology of short stories from Puerto Rico” by Wagenheim, Kal. (Bilingual)
• Una isla como tú: historias del barrio para mi familia aquí y en la isla by Cofer, Judith Ortiz.
• Cuentos puertorriqueños  compiled by Robert L. Muckley.

Where to find real-life immersion

Head into any Boricua restaurant, bodega, or neighborhood and you’ll find plenty of people to speak Puerto Rican Spanish with.

But if you want something a bit more structured, check out some of these amazing places and resources.

NYC, NJ, CT

• Newyorican poets cafe   is the historic poetry cafe for and by Puerto Rican artists in the city.
• NY Public Library has a calendar of Spanish language public events in the 5 boroughs 
• El Museu del Barrio is a visual arts museum. and workshop space dedicated to Latino, Caribbean, and Latin American arts which regularly features Borricua-specific programming.
• Puerto Rican Day Parades happen in every city throughout the tri-state area every June. Check out the local Spanish media and Facebook groups to find the one closest to you.
• The NY Latin Culture Magazine keeps an ongoing calendar of events, often sorted by diaspora, including Puerto Rican News and Events .
• Isla Lengua is the only Spanish school on the island for tourists, although it largely caters to locals working on their English. (I don’t have any experience there, but have heard they take a while to get back to emails.)
• AirBNB Experiences can be filtered by language. When you visit Puerto Rico simply browse around for events that are in small groups, one-on-one, or that cater to Spanish-speaking tourists. Let your tour guide know ahead of time that you’re traveling to practice your Spanish, and could they please speak to you in Spanish.

Organize Your Language Immersion

Want to make sure you  actually use all of these resources in a systematic way to improve your Spanish? Check out our free immersion mini-course!

To do the immersion course, all you need is 30min and a printer.

By the end of the course, you will:

• organize all the potential immersion resources;
• understand how to use trackers to create a consistent learning habit;
• and build a flexible, year-long plan for living in at-home language immersion!

The course is totally free and you’ll have lifetime access to all of the videos and printed planner (as well as future updates and improvements).

Why give away a whole free course?

Because I want to help heritage language learners like myself connect to their cultures in a way I wish someone had helped me. That simple.

Click here to access it.

Are you ready to learn Puerto Rican Spanish?

If you’ve made it this far, you now have all of the tools you need to learn Puerto Rican Spanish!

Still not feeling sure about where to start tackling this language learning project?

Here are a few final links that might help you move forward:

• How long does it take to learn a language?
• Watch me relearn my native language
• Spanish novels for learners

Did I miss anything on these lists?

Have any questions?

Let me know in the comments!

Tags: language immersion romance languages tools and resources

Marissa Blaszko

Not only did I fail out of high school Spanish, but I also managed to forget my native language (Polish) in the process. After 10 years of establishing my career in the arts I decided to give language learning one last chance, and many years (and languages) later, I now help others online learn or relearn languages. I now speak English, Spanish, French, Catalan, Portuguese and am relearning Polish, my heritage language. I've also studied Italian, German, and other languages to low- or intermediate-levels for fun. If you want to relearn a language, I'd love to help!

You may also like...

How long does it take to learn Spanish? [CALCULATOR]

January 14, 2022

SPANISH GENDER: Masculine, Feminine, and Beyond

October 27, 2021

Spanish vs French: Difficulty, Grammar, and More

May 27, 2020

• Pingbacks 0

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

• Next story  How To Learn Spanish at Home and On Your Own (Step-by-Step Tutorial)
• Previous story  Louisiana French (Tools For Heritage Learners)

Relearn A Language is an online project which teaches you how to learn Spanish, French, or any language you used to know– even if you don’t think you’re “good at languages”.

Browse by Language

• All Languages

Got any suggestions?

We want to hear from you! Send us a message and help improve Slidesgo

Top searches

Trending searches

10 templates

hispanic heritage month

21 templates

indigenous canada

47 templates

chinese mid autumn festival

7 templates

down syndrome

17 templates

8 templates

Puerto Rico Minitheme

It seems that you like this template, puerto rico minitheme presentation, free google slides theme, powerpoint template, and canva presentation template.

Puerto Rico is a Caribbean country that has it all: mountains, waterfalls, tropical forest, beautiful beaches, and a fascinating culture. Get more people to know about this country and want to visit it using this colorful and eye-catching template illustrated with Puerto Rican symbols. By downloading it you will find the structure you need to explain local traditions, gastronomy and the map, among many other aspects. You can easily personalize the various resources that we make available to you with your information. Discover it now!

Features of this template

• 100% editable and easy to modify
• 20 different slides to impress your audience
• Contains easy-to-edit graphics such as graphs, maps, tables, timelines and mockups
• Includes 500+ icons and Flaticon’s extension for customizing your slides
• Designed to be used in Google Slides, Canva, and Microsoft PowerPoint
• 16:9 widescreen format suitable for all types of screens
• Includes information about fonts, colors, and credits of the resources used

How can I use the template?

Am I free to use the templates?

How to attribute?

Combines with:

This template can be combined with this other one to create the perfect presentation:

Attribution required If you are a free user, you must attribute Slidesgo by keeping the slide where the credits appear. How to attribute?

Register for free and start downloading now

Related posts on our blog.

How to Add, Duplicate, Move, Delete or Hide Slides in Google Slides

How to Change Layouts in PowerPoint

How to Change the Slide Size in Google Slides

Related presentations.

Premium template

Unlock this template and gain unlimited access

Create your presentation Create personalized presentation content

Writing tone, number of slides.

Register for free and start editing online

Top of page

Puertorriqueños de Estados Unidos: Identity, Arts, and Culture

June 11, 2021

Posted by: Stephanie Hall

Share this post:

Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean. Puerto Rican migration to the mainland United States has largely been driven by economic necessity, whether of individuals’ needs to earn more to support themselves and their families, or large scale economic events such as the Great Depression and other economic downturns. Natural disasters such as hurricanes have also played a role. Puerto Ricans who work in the U.S. often go back and forth to the island as their career allows and may have homes in both places. Puerto Ricans who live on the mainland retain strong connections to their island and generally have a desire to preserve their cultural traditions wherever they may live. The American Folklife Center has many collections documenting Puerto Rican culture. This blog will showcase event videos and collection items available online featuring Puerto Rican arts and culture among those who live or work on the mainland.

In 2013 Elena Martínez presented a lecture on her research on the strong sense of identity of Puerto Ricans in New York City. She also follows the history of Puerto Ricans’ migration to New York. As is evident in her presentation, Puerto Rican culture has many influences, from its Spanish history, its indigenous Arawakan or Taino roots, the traditions brought to Puerto Rico by Africans, Puerto Ricans’ interactions with other Caribbean island cultures, influences from South and Central America and Mexico, and the many influences of ethnic groups in the continental United States. Her title is a reference to a poem, “Boricua en la Luna,” a poem by Juan Antonio Corretjer (1908-1985).

During the Great Depression Puerto Rico suffered an even worse economic crisis than other parts of the United States and many Puerto Ricans migrated to the mainland to find work and help support their families in Puerto Rico. Sidney Roberson Cowell documented Puerto Rican singers as part of the WPA California Folk Music Project . Aurora Calderon, Elinor Rodriguez, and Cruz Losada, all migrants to California, sang songs from their heritage. In the player below you can listen to Elinor Rodriguez singing a sad song about the Great Depression in Puerto Rico “Bolero Sentimental.” Other examples include Cruz Losada singing a dance song, “ La Pajaro Pinta ” (The gay bird), which is also used as a children’s song, and the patriotic song, “ La Tierruca ,”performed by Aurora Calderon. More examples of songs as well as photographs of the singers can be found at this link .

The cuatro is a Spanish-Caribbean instrument related to the Spanish guitar that is strongly identified with Puerto Rican music. A folk instrument, the cuatro varies in size and in the way it is strung. Although it was called the “cuatro” because the original instrument had four strings, later a fifth string was added. Today there are six and eight string cuatros as well. In addition they may have single strings like a guitar, or doubled strings like a mandolin. The cuatro is officially a national instrument of the commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and celebrated on November 17, el día del Cuatro y del Cuatrista Puertorriqueño. In Working in Paterson , a field project of the American Folklife Center, Manuel Rodriguez describes for Tom Carroll how his cuatro was made:  “My Cuatro was made out of a wood called Palo Santo.” He also tells a story of a man who had a cuatro but did not play it, and what happened when they met: “You like to have a cuatro in your house because it is something you have to have in a Puerto Rican home.”

The Chicago Ethnic Arts Project survey was conducted in 1977 by the American Folklife Center at the request of the Illinois Arts Council to assess and document the status of ethnic art traditions in more than twenty ethnic communities in Chicago. It includes documentation of Puerto Rican music and events in 1977. Recordings of performances at El Romance Club include Los Amantes performing dance music, showcasing a performer playing a small electrified cuatro that appears to have six strings. Part one of the field recording of Los Amantes can be heard using the player below the photograph of the group, and  part 2 is also available at this link .

The Lowell Folklife Project includes documentation of the Puerto Rican Festival in 1987 with recordings of several musical groups ( information on the content of these recordings may be found on folklorist Tom Rankin’s recording logs at this link ). The documentation includes recordings of a well known singer and cuatro player, Johnny Albino (1919-2011). He got his start in music playing for fellow service personnel in the U.S. Army during WWII. After the war his music took him to the mainland U.S. where he toured extensively as part of the group Los Panchos. Although his career led him to live and travel on the mainland, he always considered Puerto Rico his home. In this performance he is billed as Johnny Albino y su conjunto from Puerto Rico.

Here is a recording of Johnny Albino playing cuatro with his band. This is the second of two recordings of the group. Although this includes traditional style music played on the cuatro, not all the music is Puerto Rican. At about 20:30 minutes into the recording the group performs the traditional Mexican song, “La Bamba,” made famous by Ritchie Valens . The song has become an anthem for Hispanic Americans. If you want to hear more music from this group, find the first recording of Johnny Albino and his  trio at this link .

Another master of the cuatro, Gabriel Muñoz from New Jersey, performed at the Library of Congress in 2016 as part of the group Gabriel Muñoz and Melodias Borinqueñas. Gabriel Muñoz was also interviewed by folklorist Stephen Winick. In this blog in Folklife Today , Winick presents both the concert video and the interview: “Homegrown Plus: Gabriel Muñoz and Melodias Borinqueñas” The cuatro Muñoz plays has the pear-shaped body that is most characteristic of the Puerto Rican cuatro. It is strung with double strings so that it has a mandolin-like sound.

This concludes this tour of some collections of Puerto Rican arts and music from the mainland in American Folklife Center collections. More information can be found in the new  guide American Folklife Center Collections: Puerto Rico . If you wish to explore Puerto Rican arts represented in other special collections of the Library of Congress, the PALABRA Archive has excellent recordings of Puerto Rican authors reading their poetry and fiction. As Elena Martínez explained in her talk in the video above, poetry and literature are important ways that Puerto Ricans express their cultural identity. In this example, Esmeralda Santiago explains “How to eat a guava,” and what the tastes and smells of Puerto Rico mean to her. Find more examples of Puerto Rican authors reading their work at this link .

American Folklife Center Collections: Puerto Rico (finding aid)

Martínez, Elena, ” I’d Still be Puerto Rican, Even if Born on the Moon: Documenting Puerto Rican Migration & Community through the Arts,” 2013 (video) Library of Congress

Martínez, Elena, “I’d Still Be Puerto Rican, Even if Born on the Moon Documenting Puerto Rican Migration and Community Through the Arts,” 2013 (PDF, essay)

Search for audio recordings of Puerto Rican authors and poets reading from their work , Library of Congress PALABRA Archive

Winick, Stephen, “Homegrown Plus: Gabriel Muñoz and Melodias Borinqueñas,” Folklife Today, November 23, 2018d

Comments (2)

The American Folklife Center also has an extensive interview in its off-line collection with Johnny Colon, the influential New York Puerto Rican salsa and bugaloo musician, leader of the Johnny Colon Orchestra, and founder of the East Harlem Music. See: https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchCode=LCCN&searchArg=2017655220&searchType=1&permalink=y

Thank you for this wonderful resource. As a Puerto Rican born and raised in New York I most definitely identify with the strong sense of Identity presented in the research. I also think there is so much about the Puerto Rican experience across the states that needs to be highlighted and made known to “mainstream” Americans.

See All Comments

Add a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

'Puerto rico spanish' presentation slideshows

Puerto rico spanish - powerpoint ppt presentation.

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico.

700 views • 37 slides

View Puerto rico spanish PowerPoint (PPT) presentations online in SlideServe. SlideServe has a very huge collection of Puerto rico spanish PowerPoint presentations. You can view or download Puerto rico spanish presentations for your school assignment or business presentation. Browse for the presentations on every topic that you want.

• History & Society
• Science & Tech
• Biographies
• Animals & Nature
• Geography & Travel
• Arts & Culture
• Games & Quizzes
• On This Day
• One Good Fact
• New Articles
• Lifestyles & Social Issues
• Philosophy & Religion
• Politics, Law & Government
• World History
• Health & Medicine
• Browse Biographies
• Birds, Reptiles & Other Vertebrates
• Bugs, Mollusks & Other Invertebrates
• Environment
• Fossils & Geologic Time
• Entertainment & Pop Culture
• Sports & Recreation
• Visual Arts
• Demystified
• Image Galleries
• Infographics
• Top Questions
• Britannica Kids
• Saving Earth
• Space Next 50
• Student Center
• Introduction & Quick Facts
• Drainage and soils
• Plant and animal life
• Settlement patterns
• Ethnic composition
• Language and religion
• Demographic trends
• Puerto Ricans in the United States
• Agriculture, forestry, and fishing
• Manufacturing
• Finance and trade
• Transportation
• Armed forces and police
• Health and welfare
• Cultural institutions
• Visual arts
• Performing arts
• Sports and recreation
• Press and broadcasting

Early settlement

• Liberal reforms and regional turmoil
• Economic and political shifts
• Movements toward self-government
• The Spanish-American War
• Early years
• Socioeconomic concerns
• Political developments
• The commonwealth
• The debate over political status
• Hurricanes Maria and Fiona

• What is Puerto Rico?
• Should Puerto Rico be granted U.S. statehood?

History of Puerto Rico

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

• Smithsonian Institution - Ecos de Borinquen - "El Alma de Puerto Rico" Behind the Scenes Documentary
• Central Intelligence Agency - The World Factbook - Puerto Rico
• PBS LearningMedia - Puerto Rico to New York
• LiveScience - Puerto Rico: Geography, History and Other Facts
• Puerto Rico - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
• Puerto Rico - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
• Table Of Contents

The following discussion focuses on Puerto Rican history from the time of European settlement. For treatment of the island in its regional context , see Latin America, history of , and West Indies, history of .

Recent News

The first inhabitants of Puerto Rico were hunter-gatherers who reached the island more than 1,000 years before the arrival of the Spanish. Arawak Indians, who developed the Taino culture , had also settled there by 1000 ce . The clan-based Taino lived in small villages led by a cacique, or chief. They had a limited knowledge of agriculture but grew such domesticated tropical crops as pineapples, cassava , and sweet potatoes and supplemented their diet with seafood. In the late 15th century 20,000–50,000 Taino lived on Puerto Rico, which they called Boriquén (Borinquén, or Boriken). The Taino occasionally warded off attacks by their Carib neighbours from islands to the south and east, including the Virgin Islands and Vieques Island .

In 1493 Christopher Columbus left Spain on his second voyage to the Indies with a large expedition of 17 ships and about 1,500 men. At the island of Guadeloupe the Spaniards rescued several Taino prisoners whom the Carib had taken from Boriquén, and Columbus agreed to return them to their island. On November 19, 1493, Columbus anchored in a bay on the west coast of Boriquén, which he promptly renamed San Juan Bautista (“Saint John the Baptist”) and claimed for the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand II and Isabella I . The expeditionaries spent two days on the island before sailing westward to Hispaniola , where they established the first permanent settlement in the New World.

Spanish colonial rule

For 15 years San Juan Bautista was neglected except for an occasional visit by a ship putting in for supplies. In 1508 Juan Ponce de León , who had accompanied Columbus and worked to colonize Hispaniola, was granted permission to explore the island. On the north coast Ponce de León found an exceptionally well-protected bay that could harbour a large number of sailing vessels; on high ground beside the bay he founded Caparra , the island’s first town and the site of its first mining and agricultural operations. By 1521 the town was moved to an islet at the northern end of the harbour and renamed Puerto Rico (“Rich Port”). Through time and common usage the port became known as San Juan while the name Puerto Rico came to be applied to the whole island.

The Taino soon lost reverence for their Spanish “protectors,” who expected the Indians to act as vassals, paying tribute in gold and food as well as accepting instruction in the Christian religion. Meanwhile, European diseases (to which the Spaniards were largely immune) and maltreatment had begun to devastate the Taino population. In 1511 the Indians rebelled but had only temporary success against the better-armed Spanish, who again subjugated them. The Spanish subsequently brought Indian slaves from nearby islands and black slaves from Africa in order to fully staff their placer mines. However, gold production markedly declined after the 1530s, and many of the Europeans migrated elsewhere.

Those who remained set up sugarcane and ginger plantations with their African slaves, but the colony continued to lead a precarious existence. Carib groups from neighbouring islands made frequent raids, carrying off food and slaves and destroying property. Puerto Rico was further ravaged by disease, and it was plundered by French, British, and Dutch pirates. During the mid-16th century French forces repeatedly burned and sacked San Germán , the island’s second settlement. Increasing numbers of colonists left the island.

In the second half of the 16th century Spain, recognizing the strategic importance of Puerto Rico, undertook to convert San Juan into a military outpost by using a financial subsidy from the Mexican mines. Initially they built a fortified palace for the governor called La Fortaleza (“The Fortress”), followed by the massive San Felipe del Morro ( El Morro ) castle, which was perfectly located to dominate the narrow entrance to the harbour. Finally they added a stronger and larger fortress (San Cristóbal) to the northeast, on the Atlantic side of the city. In the early 17th century the city was surrounded by a stone wall 25 feet (8 metres) high and 18 feet (5 metres) thick, two parts of which still stand. These defenses made San Juan almost impregnable.

In 1595 Sir Francis Drake attacked the city with a sizable fleet but failed to silence its guns. Three years later the British soldier George Clifford, 3rd earl of Cumberland , captured the city but was soon forced to abandon it after his troops fell victim to disease (probably dysentery). In 1625 the Dutchman Bowdoin Hendrik captured and burned the town but failed to subdue El Morro, where the governor had taken refuge.

San Juan, the most exposed military outpost guarding Spain’s New World empire, received political and economic attention from the mother country; however, the island’s rural inhabitants, or jíbaros , were typically ignored by Spain and scorned by the residents of San Juan. The jíbaros thus fended for themselves and cultivated their own small landholdings. As the French, British, Danish, and Dutch fought over and settled the Lesser Antilles during the 17th and 18th centuries, the colonial authorities of San Juan rarely ventured beyond their walled defenses for fear of buccaneer attacks; however, the jíbaros , ignoring the edicts of Spain, prospered somewhat by trading clandestinely with non-Spanish merchants. Ginger, hides, sugarcane, tobacco, and cattle from the island were in great demand. The settlers’ contact with foreigners did not turn them away from their mother country—as the Spanish crown had feared—instead, they remained loyal and willing to participate in military expeditions.

Puerto Rico

Get facts and photos about the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

The Taíno people have lived on the island of Puerto Rico since around 1200, and they still live there today. They called the island Borikén, which some historians think meant “island of crabs” or perhaps “land of the brave.”

When Christopher Columbus arrived in 1493, he made the island a colony of Spain by royal decree, and he called it San Juan Bautista in honor of John the Baptist, a Christian prophet. Then in 1508, the island’s first governor, Juan Ponce de León, changed the name to Puerto Rico, which means “rich port” in the Spanish language. That’s because gold and treasures from the Americas went through Puerto Rico before sailing to Europe. Around that time, slave traders forced African people to the island to build forts and work on farms.

Puerto Rico came under United States rule after Spain lost the Spanish-American War in 1898. Then in 1917, the island became a U.S. territory and Puerto Ricans were given U.S. citizenship when President Woodrow Wilson signed the Jones-Shafroth Act.

Although Puerto Rico is not a state, residents use the U.S. dollar and services like the U.S. Postal Service. U.S. citizens—including Puerto Ricans—don’t need passports to travel between Puerto Rico and the mainland United States.

It’s often called an island, but Puerto Rico is actually an archipelago, which is a string of islands. Only three are inhabited: the main island of Puerto Rico and two islands named Vieques (pronounced vee-EH-kez) and Culebra (koo-LAY-bra).

The land was created by a now-extinct volcano that began erupting about 190 million years ago. The main island has a mountain range, La Cordillera (koor-day-YEH-rah) Central, that runs east to west. At 4,389 feet (four times the height of the Eiffel Tower ), Cerro de Punta in the central town of Jayuya (HA-yuh-yah) is the highest point on the island.

Puerto Rico is a tropical habitat with warm weather year-round and has the only tropical rainforest in the U.S. national forest system, El Yunque (YUHN-kay) National Forest. It’s one of the smallest national forests in the United States, but it’s also one of the most diverse, holding 183 animal species and 225 tree species (23 of which are found only in this area). Although the main island is just about 110 miles long and 35 miles wide, it holds a rainforest, a dry forest in Guánica, and hundreds of rivers and waterfalls.

One of the island’s most famous wildlife residents is the coquí (koh-KEE), a dime-size frog thats name comes from the sound it makes. The island also has around 320 bird species, including the emerald hummingbird (which lives nowhere else) and the Puerto Rican parrot.

Coquí frog photography by Neftalí Rios

PEOPLE AND CULTURE

Puerto Ricans’ heritage is a mix of Taíno Indian, African, and European (mostly Spanish)—and the island’s food reflects this. The Taíno people farmed yuca (a potato-like vegetable), African people brought plantains (sort of like bananas), and the Spanish brought rice. Popular dishes include lechón (roasted pork, pronounced lay-CHON), rice and beans, mofongo (which is mashed fried plantains), and fried fritters such as empanadas and alcapurrias (al-kah-POO-ree-as). Tropical fruits such a pineapple, guava, mangoes, passion fruit, and tamarind are used in sweet and savory dishes.

The capital of San Juan and its surrounding towns, located on the northern coast, is the most populated area of Puerto Rico. (If Puerto Rico was a state, it would be more populous than 20 other U.S. states, as of 2020 population data.)

Mofongo photograph by Yulia-Bogdanova / Getty Images

Puerto Rico is not a state or a country but an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States. That means it has its own government—Puerto Ricans elect their own governor and members of their Senate and House of Representatives to make laws. But it also means that that not all of the U.S. Constitution automatically applies to Puerto Rico residents. (In 1950 Puerto Rico became a commonwealth, meaning it has its own constitution.) They can’t vote for the president of the United States, but they do vote for a representative called the Resident Commissioner. This person can’t vote on U.S. laws, but instead speaks on behalf of Puerto Rican interests, sponsor bills, and participates in congressional committees.

The Spanish name for the status of Puerto Rico, Estado Libre y Asociado (hes-TA-do LEE-bray ee ah-so-SEE-ah-do), meaning “free and associated state,” represents the relationship with the United States. However, Puerto Ricans have voted six times between 1967 and 2020 on what they want the status of Puerto Rico to be: a U.S. state, an independent nation, or a territory. In 2020 the majority of voters chose to become a state—but the final decision to grant statehood lies with the U.S. Congress.

• Famous Puerto Ricans include singer Ricky Martin, baseball player Roberto Clemente, and actor Benicio del Toro (DJ from Star Wars: The Last Jedi ). The creator of the popular musical Hamilton , Lin-Manuel Miranda, was born to Puerto Rican parents, as was singer Jennifer Lopez.

• La Fortaleza, a fort in Old San Juan (the historic part of the capital), was built in the 1500s to protect the island from foreign invaders such as English and Dutch explorers. Today it’s a tourist attraction and includes a mansion where the governor lives.

• San Juan is the oldest continuously inhabited city in a U.S. territory.

• Puerto Rico has three bioluminescent bays: Cabezas (kah-BEH-zahs) de San Juan, La Parguera (par-GHEH-rah), and Mosquito Bay in Vieques. These rare places have tiny organisms that glow when they move.

• More people of Puerto Rican origin (an estimated 5.6 million) live in the mainland United States than in Puerto Rico.

Explore more

U.s. states and territories facts and photos, video: 50 birds, 50 states, native americans.

• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Your California Privacy Rights
• Children's Online Privacy Policy
• Interest-Based Ads
• About Nielsen Measurement
• Do Not Sell My Info
• National Geographic
• National Geographic Education
• Shop Nat Geo
• Customer Service
• Manage Your Subscription

Copyright © 1996-2015 National Geographic Society Copyright © 2015-2024 National Geographic Partners, LLC. All rights reserved

Spanish-Speaking Countries of the World - PUERTO RICO! (Animated Presentation!)

Also included in

Description

Teach your students interesting facts about PUERTO RICO with this fun, animated presentation. This presentation was based off of my VIDEO on PUERTO RICO for kids available through YouTube!

Other Presentations Like This!

Check out my Spanish-Speaking Countries of the World Growing Bundle for more presentations like this and for the best price while this bundle grows, purchase today!

PowerPoint files can easily be uploaded to your Google Drive! CLICK HERE for step-by-step instructions!

Puerto Rico country clipart courtesy of Educlips !

Questions & Answers

Mi camino spanish.

• We're hiring
• Help & FAQ
• Privacy policy
• Student privacy
• Terms of service
• Tell us what you think