French Influence in Puerto Rican and Popular Culture
The French eventually intermarried into the local population, adopting the language and customs of their new homeland. Their influence in Puerto Rico is very much present and in evidence in the island's cuisine, literature and arts. French surnames such as Betancourt and Gautier are common in Puerto Rico. This immigration from mainland France and its territories to Puerto Rico was the largest in number, second only to Spanish immigrants and today a great number of Puerto Ricans can claim French ancestry; 16 percent of the surnames on the island are either French or French-Corsican. The descendants of the original French settlers have distinguished themselves as business people, politicians and writers. "La Casa del Francés" (The Frenchman's House), built in 1910, is a turn-of-the-century plantation mansion, recently designated as a historical landmark by the National Register of Historic Places, located on the island of Vieques. It is now a guest house.
Besides having distinguished careers in agriculture and the military, Puerto Ricans of French descent have made many other contributions to the Puerto Rican way of life. Their contributions can be found, but are not limited to, the fields of education, commerce, politics, science and entertainment. Amongst the poets of French descent who have contributed to the literature of Puerto Rico are Evaristo Ribera Chevremont, whose verses are liberated from folkloric subject matter and excel in universal lyricism., José Gautier Benítez is by the people of Puerto Rico to be the best poet of the Romantic Era. and Enrique Laguerre, a Nobel literature prize nominee. plus writer and playwright René Marqués whose play, La Carreta (The Oxcart) helped secure his reputation as a leading literary figure in Puerto Rico. The drama traces a rural Puerto Rican family as it moved to the slums of San Juan and then to New York in search for a better life, only to be disillusioned and to long for their island.
In field of science Dr. Carlos E. Chardón, the first Puerto Rican mycologist, known as "the Father of Mycology in Puerto Rico". He discovered the aphid "Aphis maidis", the vector of the sugar cane Mosaic virus. Mosaic viruses are plant viruses. and Fermín Tangüis, an agriculturist and scientist who developed the seed that would eventually produce the Tanguis cotton in Peru and saving that nation's cotton industry.
Read more about this topic: French Immigration To Puerto Rico
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, french, influence, popular and/or culture:
“Like other secret lovers, many speak mockingly about popular culture to conceal their passion for it.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“If you should put a knife into a French girl’s learning it would explode and blow away like an omelette soufflee ...”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)
“It behooves every man to see that his influence is on the side of justice, and let the courts make their own characters.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“One knows so well the popular idea of health. The English country gentleman galloping after a fox—the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Our culture has become something that is completely and utterly in love with its parent. It’s become a notion of boredom that is bought and sold, where nothing will happen except that people will become more and more terrified of tomorrow, because the new continues to look old, and the old will always look cute.”
—Malcolm McLaren (b. 1946)