El país de cuatro pisos y otros ensayos

by José Luis González

In this work, González dismantles the myth of a dominant Spanish and racially white national culture in Puerto Rican history. He claims that the national identity is primarily Mestizo (mixed race) with a significant contribution from Africa. González calls the African slaves and Mestizo peasantry the first Puerto Ricans because they were the first inhabitants who had to make the island their home. Having witnessed successful uprisings in neighboring Haiti, the Spanish authorities encouraged white immigrants to settle in Puerto Rico in an attempt to “whiten” the population, then thought to be tilting dangerously to the advantage of the Afro-Antilleans. These immigrants became the small but influential class of landowners and, later, urban professionals. According to the author’s grand metaphor, Afro-Antilleans and Mestizos constitute the first “storey,” or tier, of the “Puerto Rican house” of the title, landowners the second, urban professionals the third, and the managerial class the fourth.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Spanish Literature, Politics, Essays

119 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1980

About the author

José Luis González was a Puerto Rican essayist, novelist, short story writer, university professor, and journalist who lived most of his life in exile in Mexico due to his pro-independence political views. He is considered to be one of the most important Puerto Rican authors of the 20th century, particularly for his book Puerto Rico: The Four-Storeyed Country and Other Essays, which was first published in Spanish in 1980.

Reviews

[José · Rating 4 out of 5]

González utiliza en su ensayo clásico la metáfora de un país estructurado en cuatro pisos para desmantelar ciertos mitos que predominan en la sociedad puertorriqueña.

En primer plano, González demuestra que el mito de una cultura jíbara predominante en Puerto Rico fue la invención de una clase hacendada española que, posterior al cambio de soberanía de España a Estados Unidos en 1898, perdió su poderío económico y recurrió a las letras para crear nostalgia por un “pasado” que no ocurrió. González ve esta recreación del pasado como una manifestación del racismo de los hacendados blancos y sus descendientes hacia los negros y pobres cuyas características africanas el autor describe como el verdadero componente principal de la cultura puertorriqueña.

Asimismo, el autor correctamente identifica que, no empece los avances sociales, políticos y económicos bajo la soberanía americana en la primera mitad del siglo XX, tarde o temprano desembocaríamos en el mar de desasosiego que actualmente vivimos debido al estatus colonial de Puerto Rico. De paso establece un punto, poco reconocido dentro del movimiento estadista, de que la anuencia del gobierno federal para admitir a Puerto Rico como estado a principios del siglo XX, sancionada mediante legislación judicial de la Corte Suprema en los Casos Insulares, propició el ascenso del nacionalismo en Puerto Rico.

González, un independentista de corte social demócrata, aduce que la influencia americana sobre Puerto Rico en el siglo XX fue decisiva para la vindicación de derechos de las mujeres, los negros y los trabajadores. Muestra la formación y el ascenso político del prócer estadista José Celso Barbosa, un medico negro, como evidencia de lo que era posible en la órbita americana vis a vis la española.

Sin embargo, González se contradice al asegurar al final de su ensayo que la estadidad significaría un suicidio cultural colectivo. Asevera, con un argumento vago y anacrónico para finales del siglo XX, que ese régimen americano que propició avances sociales en Puerto Rico, a pesar del racismo interno puertorriqueño, rechazaría nuestro pedido de estadidad por racismo y que la admisión resultaría en la destrucción de la cultura puertorriqueña . En el proceso González demuestra desconocimiento de los poderes inherentes a un estado federado bajo la Décima Enmienda a la Constitución de los Estados Unidos, además de una desalentadora desconfianza en la capacidad del puertorriqueño para preservar su cultura. Si González primero asegura que la cultura se ha fortalecido a pesar del estatus colonial, resulta inverosímil leer como el autor luego asegura que dicha cultura se destruiría bajo un sistema federal que le brindaría mayores poderes al puertorriqueño para defenderla.

[JP · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read selections from this book for a class on Caribbean Politics.

The Four-Storyed Country and Other Essays doesn't make my list of highly recommended books. Because of the hit or miss, I'm giving it 2 stars. Puerto Rico is an incredibly interesting example of imperialism right off the coast of our shore, and it's intricately entwined with the US because of its Commonwealth status. Gonzalez' strongest work in this collection by FAR is The Four-Storyed Country. It discusses an incredibly important dimension of Puerto Rican identity that we (non-specialists in the island) rarely see: Puerto Ricans aren't homogeneous. Some people are of African descent, which is decidedly different from the mestizo identity shared by many, and then both of the above subgroups are oppressed by the upper classes that reap benefits from Puerto Rico's wealth. Some of those people are nestled into a bourgeois middle class, and some are the inheritors of plunderers who used their political connections to establish and take advantage of the power of Capital.

Gonzalez is an impassioned nationalist speaks in Marxist terms throughout the book, and I loved reading about the country through his eyes. As someone without any background in Puerto Rican history or culture it was very interesting.

That said, many of the essays seemed completely useless and boring. He also doesn't seem to have any real solutions to the problems that he raises, unless those solutions are to create some sort of culture of brotherhood on the island. This is utopian, indeed, nestled as it is between his accounts of brutality and oppression by ruling classes.

The first essay is where it's at. Read that, don't read the rest, and you might give this book 4 stars. By the time I was done I just couldn't.

[Félix Manuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un ensayo profundo que analiza la trayectoria histórica y cultural de Puerto Rico a través de la metáfora de los cuatro pisos. José Luis González ofrece una visión crítica de nuestra identidad, realidad histórica y política. Una lectura reveladora que me conscientizó.

[zapata · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do books count even if you only read what you wanted and nothing more?