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Transcript: Pedro Molina Parrilla, exchange student in Germany and intern at Spotlight.
Yeah, so, in Puerto Rico, we speak mostly Spanish. Like in the street, you only hear Spanish. I mean, if you’re in the capital [of San Juan], in the touristy area, you might get on the bus, start hearing a bunch of Americans speaking English. But that’s as far as you’ll get. Some people know English well — most don’t. Especially those that aren’t close to big cities. There aren’t a lot of big cities in Puerto Rico: you have like Ponce, Mayagüez, San Juan — please, those Puerto Ricans out there hearing, please don’t judge me if I didn’t mention your city. But yeah, most people don’t speak English very well.
I think we have our own culture, and our own language — I mean, because Puerto Rico, we were, basically, we became a part of Spain, like a colony, in, like, 1493. We spoke Spanish throughout all that time, and then in 1898 the Americans took over, and then they kind of tried to make English the official language — it didn’t work out. So that just goes to show that we have our own culture, our own ideas, our ideals as well, that we want to maintain. I mean, we have our own Olympic team, we have our own national basketball team, our own national baseball team. So yeah, we — there’s people that want Puerto Rico to become a state [instead of a territory of the United States], but it’s kind of contradictory, because people want to become a state, but they don’t want to let go of, you know, their Olympic team, their own Miss Universe, you know? So we have a bit of an identity crisis in Puerto Rico — yeah.