President's Day in Puerto Rico

On February 20, 2012, Puerto Rico decided to celebrate President's Day by unveiling life-sized bronze statues of President Barack Obama and former President Lyndon B. Johnson to its "Avenue of Heroes" just outside San Juan's neoclassical Capitol Building.  These two new additions become part of an exhibit which aligns the avenue with bronze statues of previous U.S. Presidents who have visited Puerto Rico dating back to Theodore Roosevelt.  President Obama becomes the ninth U.S. President to grace our island with a visit.


The Associated Press covered the story of the ceremony (which was picked up by many other prestigious news outlets) and was presided over by Pedro Pierluisi, Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico (a non-voting and Puerto Rico's only member of Congress), Kenneth McClintock, Secretary of State for Puerto Rico and various other Puerto Rican officials.  Ceremony speeches gave mention to Puerto Rico's political status and lack of voting power in electing the very Presidents that were being honored that day, despite being Americans. This caused quite a backlash of negative comments on the website the article appeared in and the main reason I am writing about this topic today.


Actually the ignorance, racism, intolerance and just plain ugliness of the comments displayed by my fellow Americans caused me pause and I decided to wait a while before commenting on the whole issue.  There was no way I could have written this post before today without becoming as calculating and callous as most of the commentators who spread their hate that week.  I decided a long time ago, I would never stoop down so low as to any bigot's level; I pride myself on accepting people by their character and not much else.


The article itself was a tribute to President's Day.  Originally celebrated in the month of February as Washington's and Lincoln's Birthdays but combined, appropriately in my opinion, to commemorate all U.S. Presidents.


That the simple act of honoring President Obama with a statue can evoke such fierce personal racists attacks shows a lack of respect, commonality and unity. Disrespecting not only our President but also the people that honored him.  The fact that both of these Presidents happen to be Democrats gave some the excuse to label Puerto Ricans "leftist liberals" among other choice words I will not stain my blog with. I understand that we are in an economic crises.  I understand that we are war weary. I understand that we feel "used and abused" by our elected officials; but must we regress to pre-Civil Rights mentality in the process?   We, all of us, are better than that.


For those that erroneously believed that we have only honored "weak Democrats",  below is the list of Presidents that are enshrined in our beloved city of San Juan with a bronze statue, political affiliation and date of visit:


     1.  Theodore Roosevelt, Republican, November 21, 1906.
     2.  Herbert Hoover, Republican, March 24, 1931.
     3.  Franklin D. Roosevelt, Democrat, July 7, 1934.
     4.  Harry S. Truman, Democrat, February 21-22, 1948.
     5.  Dwight D. Eisenhower, Republican, March 4-7, 1960.
     6.  John F. Kennedy, Democrat, December 15-16, 1961.
     7.  Lyndon B. Johnson, Democrat, March 2-4, 1968.
     8.  Gerard R. Ford, Republican, June 27-28, 1976 (For the             G6 Summit).
     9.  Barack H. Obama, Democrat, June 14, 2011.


I am proud that my little island celebrated President's Day in such a grand way and I personally apologize to Lyndon Johnson for the delay but money is tight right now. :)


For me, it is hard to accept that we are still "red headed step children", my humorous way of saying, not yet allowed to sit at the Master's table, with the big boys, yet Puerto Ricans can still make a marvelous meal out of almost anything. We will wait patiently and work diligently, for the time will come when our contribution will be acknowledged and appreciated.  After all, after over a century of weaving together the great fabric that is America, it is going to be difficult to determine which thread is yours and which is mine.

A Peek into My Trip Overseas

I landed in Frankfurt, Germany, on December 31, 2011; as the guest of my eldest son Pedro.  I always dreamed of visiting Europe, I believe anyone who is not European does at some point in their lives.  It happened in a blink of an eye, as a last minute decision and yet, aren't those sometimes the best adventures?  The ones that are not overly planned and fussed over?

That first night, the sky was made daylight with fireworks.  It seemed all of the inhabitants of this little village of Sembach, left the warmth of their homes at the stroke of midnight to celebrate the New Year.  The bombardment was spectacular.  It took my breath away.  I imagined being in another time, a time of war and what I heard and felt was not a celebration, but an invasion.  I must admit, it was thrilling. My only concern was my grandson, Julian, sound asleep in his room.  He slept through the many hours of marvelous lunacy that I witnessed.

As of the writing of this post, a month and a half into my three month stay, I have visited a few small towns; Saarbrucken, Otterberg, Landstuhl and Melingen, among others.  Each with quaint little houses, local churchs, boutiques, mom and pop stores and friendly people.  I would take advantage of photographing whatever caught my eye to the chagrin of my son.  Post signs (Ausfahrt being my favorite), factories, lamp posts, churches, hills, restaurant menus, billboards, building decor and sometimes even soup labels.  He just doesn't understand there is a photographer hidden in me and I see beauty and humor in everything. Besides, I may never set foot in Europe again; so I am recording my future memories now, so as to have something precious to look at when the Alzheimer's kicks in.  (A history of Alzheimer's runs in the family; I frequently make reference to it in a humorous fashion).

As far as, major tourist attractions I have visited a Dinosaur Museum in Neunkirchen, Saarland. World of Fun, indoor family entertainment facility, in Zweibrucken.  And Burg Nanstein Castle in Landstuhl, Kaiserslautern; built in 1162 A.D., that makes it a 150 years shy of a millennium! All of these places mentioned are in Germany.   I have been promised more sightseeing in the weeks to come.

I have sampled my first tastes of German cuisine and realized that Germans really, I mean really, like Mexican food.  Who knew?   I have found that things taste different here.  A pastry is not as sweet.  Not everything is buried in sugar and salt.  And because of that, what you eat is more true to its natural flavor. Which is a good thing, in my opinion.  On the other hand, local canned products do not have the same quality as back home and on that account, I stick to American brands.

But what I am truly impressed with, so far, are the windows in this part of the world.  They are not the common ones we use in the States that simply open up or down.  These windows are a masterpiece in and of themselves.  They have pulleys and open in several stages.  One can half pull the lever and they open at an angle, if you wish to open them completely, then just continue pulling the lever and the window is separated from its main setting.  I smile at how ingenious our German cousins are. I have never seen anything like that back home.

As a side note, I did deliberately state German cousins in the previous paragraph, in that, I received the DNA results I ordered to help establish the paternal side of my genealogical gene pool; and the Echevarrias in our family happen to have a strong connection to Germany, more so than any other European country, including Spain.  That I happened to be in Germany when I received those results just tickled me pink!!  I know, I am a nerd.  :)

Getting back on subject, another thing I must comment on is don't believe those Visa commercials back home.  It is not accepted worldwide.  I am not sure if its the present world economic crisis, or that the commerce is not as standardize here as in the United States, or just the local common practice, but in Germany, currency rules.  Make sure you get some euros from the ATM before you attempt to go and pay for something with credit.  I have had a couple of embarrassing incidents.

I did not want to wait until the end of my trip to actually write something about my experiences overseas, therefore, here is a glimpse of what I have been up to so far.  I am sure once I visit Paris, and a couple of other places I have in mind, I will mesmerize you with some brilliant insightful writing, but for the moment, this post will calm my guilty conscience and hopefully give you, my loyal readers, something to smile about.

*Ausfahrt = Exit in German.  Exit signs at the Autoban (Highway).
*The American joke here is to ask "Did you Ausfahrt?"  As in, "Did you(r) As(s) Fart?"  They have T-Shirts.  I plan to get one!!!