Cuba y Puerto Rico son...

I was going to breakfast this morning when I noticed about a dozen Puerto Rican youths, draped from head to toe in their flag, waiting for a New York-bound bus to take them to the Puerto Rican Day Parade, now in its 50th edition. I confess that I got a lump in my throat not only because the Puerto Rican flag, the twin of our flag, and consecrated to that fraternal people by José Martí, stirs in me almost the same powerful emotions as does the Cuban flag, but also because I was touched by their simple patriotism. When it comes to patriotism, simplicity is its highest expression.

I am sure that none of them knows anything about Puerto Rico; most may not even speak Spanish and those that do would probably surprise us with their innovations to the language. Few, if any, have visited the island, which would have allowed the senses to absorb everything that one can find in books. And yet, wonderful miracle of Nature and nurture, they feel Puerto Rican: it is what they are and what defines them in a great and notoriously absorbing city and nation.

This is instinctive patriotism, which flows in the veins and to the heart, bypassing all other internal organs (including the brain). It used to be that music, at least, bound them to Borinquén, but now hip-hop has replaced el punto. I suppose that their grandmothers still cook arroz con gandules and they eat it, but that is probably their only tangible connection to an island 3, 4 or more generations removed from their personal experience. And, still, there is their flag, with which they adorn themselves not just on this special day, but every day of the year. Their flag is beautiful, modelled as it is on our own. But there must be some other explanation for their love of it and identification with it; there must be, but, try as I might, I can't uncover it.

Which leaves us with the flag itself as the repository of history, culture and civics, not just the emblem of the nation but the palpable thing itself. Those who burn the flag, any flag, understand this, and those who support their right to do so do not understand it. If they did understand the real significance of the flag they would never support that so-called right.

The history of the Puerto Rican people is relatively uncomplicated as compared to ours. Our star sits in a triangle of blood; theirs in a serene sea of blue. On the island their historians have studied the Grito de Lares, which lasted all of one day, as thoroughly as our historians have the Grito de Yara, which lasted ten years. Every fact of their history and culture is explored and re-explored, and they revere all their prohombres whatever their political stamp, whether separatists, autonomists or annexationists (to Spain or the U.S.). Confronted as they are every day by the beauty of their country it is no wonder they love it; but I believe that they don't love it any more than those youths waiting for the bus yesterday.

God grant that, if nothing else, Cuban exiles have been able to inculcate that same love of country in their progeny born in this country or raised here; for we are in greater need of that instinctive patriotism than our Puerto Rican brothers (with Dominicans, the only brothers we have in this world). For in Cuba, there are vast numbers who hate our flag, who hate our country, who hate Martí. Not just those who have profaned our flag for 48 years but even their victims who react against the symbols which the enemies of our country have appropriated and used to cover their worst crimes. It is my hope and should be the hope of us all that this is a temporary delusion which will be dispelled as soon as our flag again flies over a free country. If it is not dispelled the future will not bode well for our unhappy country.

In any case, all will not be lost if Cuban youth, raised or born here, espouse that instinctive patriotism, always beautiful, but never more beautiful than when witnessed in the young.