‘English Also’ Is Now Law in Puerto Rico

Shrugging off the protests of cultural purists and opponents of statehood, Gov. Pedro Rossello signed a bill Thursday making English and Spanish official languages of this U.S. territory.

“Now we have two hymns, two flags, two languages,” Rossello told hundreds of cheering supporters at a signing ceremony in the western San Juan suburb of Bayamon.

He dismissed as “a rhetorical storm” the arguments of critics who sought to safeguard the 21-month-old status of Spanish as the island’s official tongue.

Rossello, who took office Jan. 2, made passage of the “English-also law” his first official mission, pushing it through a Legislature dominated by his New Progressive Party. The legislation replaces a law that made Spanish the official language of the island, which Spain ceded to the United States in 1898.

The language of the new statute says that English and Spanish can be used interchangeably in all government and political documents and discussions. Spanish is the primary language of most Puerto Ricans.

Language and culture are touchy subjects in Puerto Rico, where many resent what they see as U.S. cultural encroachment.

But Rossello, an Ivy League-educated physician, argued that the Spanish-only law hindered the spread of high technology, much of which relies on English terminology.

He also said the law stood in the way of plans to convince the U.S. Congress that the Caribbean island of 3.6 million people is ready to become a state. The Spanish-only law was passed in 1991 with the backing of Rossello’s predecessor, Rafael Hernandez Colon, an opponent of statehood.

Hernandez Colon’s Popular Democratic Party favors keeping Puerto Rico a commonwealth with enhanced autonomy.

Ricardo Alegria, founder of the Puerto Rican Cultural Institute, said a protest rally Sunday by about 100,000 people in San Juan was useful even if the law’s passage was assured.

“The Hispanic world had to know that in Puerto Rico there is a large group that continues to defend the mother tongue,” he said. “History will judge us all.”