The Affect of Americanization on Women

When Puerto Rico came under American control, major changes in social, economic, and cultural norms came about. In Mintz’s Worker in the Cane, the author highlights these changes through interviews with Don Taso, a Puerto Rican man from Barrio Jauca. This town is mainly run by the major sugar corporations owned by American businessmen. Almost everything follows the workings of the cane fields. However, it is also important to look at the cultural changes in this town, especially concerning women.

Both Taso and Mintz speak a lot about the aspects of dating in the community. They speak about the Saturday night nickelodeons (19). Taso speaks fondly of the dances as a place to socialize with young ladies (19). These dances would be put on by certain families or organizations (67). He also talks about how a certain dress code, specifically long pants, was implemented in order to keep young boys away from the dances (72). This would be necessary in order to keep boys that are too young out of the dances that often had prostitutes at them (79). However, Taso explains that boys would sneak into these, to observe sexual acts which were normally hidden from them by society (80). He also gives an example of a friend who contracted a sexual transmitted disease and almost died from it, showing the lack of sexual education. Taso states, however, that these dances have become less rare, replaced by the gatherings around a jukebox (74). Such a change not only has an effect on the social interactions of young people, but also possibly was a factor in the decline of prostitution.

In Taso’s childhood and young adult life, sex was a taboo subject and adults would “always hide [sex] as much as possible” (76). Not only was sex kept secret, but it was often rare for young men and women to engage in pre-elopement sex (79). Elí makes a comment that if a man “possesses her before making himself responsible to her and then he gets the desire to go away, he leaves her and the woman loses her chance [to marry]” (81). The community valued pre-marital chastity so much that a couple would often have to date secretly (90). It was assumed that if a girl did not come home by a certain time, she was carried off for an elopement to her sweetheart (46). Taso explains that things are different in the 1950s and 60s, that girls are often out until dawn (46). Due to the extreme amount of secrecy needed to date, couples often so no other option except to elope.

In the town of Jauca and also throughout many rural towns of Puerto Rico, elopement was more common than marriage (89). To elope, a man would simply separate the object of his desire from her family, by taking her away to a nearby town (90). Due to this “elopement and marriage come to mean the same thing” (90). Both Tomasa, Taso’s sister, and Elí, Taso’s wife, were both eloped before their second union. This made the repetition of this kind of elopement unneeded for their second partners.

Because these elopements were usually never permanent at first, there were different cultural norms when dealing with a previously eloped woman, called a mujer de estato, or a more “virginal” never committed woman, called a señorita (90). When a young woman is being pursued by a suitor, the parents will often push for a legal marriage, to protect their daughter (93). Sometimes men will be common-law married to one woman, and carry off another woman and become legally married. In such cases, the legal marriage would take precedent (93). This is what happened to Taso’s sister (46). It is interesting how Taso knows about his sister’s husband flirting and dating other women, but speaks nothing of it to his sister, as if to protect her from the pain of separating from him.

On the other hand, mujers de estato are considered to be more responsible for their actions. However, even they try to protect their reputation by never meeting in pivate with a suitor. This problem arises with Elí and Taso as both of them describe getting caught and in trouble for walking home together without a chaperone. This further shows the protection of the chastity of an unmarried woman. The main difference between marrying a señorita or a mujer de estato is that for the latter, such an elaborate and secretive elopement is not needed (92). Often the new husband will just move in with his wife in her family’s house (92). This is exactly what Taso did when he married Elí (93). Parents would also not push for a legal marriage as they would with a señorita. This was most likely caused by the belief that a woman was not usually worth legally marrying if she was not a virgin. These different cultural norms caused tension in a marriage.

Marriage itself was hard for women. They were often responsible for most of the domestic work and were on constant guard of their husbands leaving them. They were often “always at home” and could not watch their husbands’ wandering eyes (48). It was not uncommon for husbands to take other women like Tomasa’s husband Cornelio did (47). Therefore, if the marriage was a common law one, it would be placed below the legal marriage in importance (93). Because of this, it was not very uncommon for wives to be extremely jealous of their husbands as Elí was in her and Taso’s early and later years of marriage. These ill feelings could have possibly been dulled by their marriage in the church some twenty years later (264). The church had a profound impact on changing the cultural norms of the Puerto Rican people, causing them to fit more Westernized views by the abolishment of such things as gambling and drinking (266). The call of the church to focus on family and reading the Bible could have also impacted the decline in both Elí’s jealousy and common-law marriages. It seems that legal or church marriages were increasing and there was “a decline of the power of local community norms and a tendency to depend more on the institutional controls of a wider society” (94). This also had a huge impact on other women issues such as birth control and childbirth.

Birth control and contraceptives were overall a new thing in Puerto Rico, introduced by American culture. Knowledge and use of birth control was increasing rapidly during Taso’s adult life (173-174). Taso immediately shows his dislike for it, causing one to question the accuracy and possibly downplaying of birth control’s effect on society (163). He does explain though that women started to get it more often, sometimes fueled by their husbands (163). Later, operations were used as well (163). This had a profound impact on the rural and poor people of Puerto Rico. The possibility of birth control gave the possibility of limiting the number of kids one had for not only economic reasons, but health reasons as well.

Childbirth was very hard for women of this time. Taso explains a number of times the complications that his wife had during pregnancies. His own sister died in a complicated childbirth. He describes how there was a severe lack of midwives around (32). These were also rare later because midwives were soon required to pass competency exams and become registered (117). Overall, this was a good thing for Puerto Rican women as they were now almost guaranteed to have quality help during child bearing. Another problem in child birth and pregnancy was the tradition of using at home remedies. Women would drink a “foul rum” to protect them from “the animal inside them” that would “sting them” after they gave birth (116). Another remedy was the drinking of a nutmeg-water concoction, a scary thought since nutmeg has proven to be fatal in large doses (116-117). These remedies were often more harmful than helpful and Taso points out that a home-made remedy for malaria “contributed to [his] losing [his] teeth prematurely” (41). However, over the years, doctors were able to decrease the use of these though education (117). These precautions helped women fulfill the cultural standard of having children with less fear than thirty years previously.

The concept of “Americanization” overall benefited women in rural Puerto Rico. Don Taso’s account showed the renewed security of women in church and legal marriages versus elopements. It also showed the cultural norms of dating and how these changed through the years. The introduction of birth control and better birthing precautions allowed women to make a choice in their lives when it came to children. By and large, Worker in the Cane allowed great insight into the lives and troubles of Puerto Rican women.