French Immigration To Puerto Rico - French Influence in Puerto Rican and Popular Culture

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.