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The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is an island American dependency located in that part of the Caribbean known as the The Greater Antilles. Other islands in the same geographical group are Cuba, the Cayman Islands, Hispaniola (containing the Dominican Republic and Haiti) and Jamaica.
Originally populated for centuries by indigenous aboriginal peoples known as Taínos, the island was claimed by Christopher Columbus for Spain, during his second voyage to the Americas, on 19 November 1493. Under Spanish rule, the island was colonised and the indigenous population was forced into slavery. Spain possessed Puerto Rico for over 400 years, despite attempts at capture of the island by the French, Dutch, and British.
As one of the terms of the Treaty of Paris at the conclusion of the Spanish-American War of 1898, Spain ceded Puerto Rico, along with the Philippines, to the United States. In 1917, Puerto Ricans were granted US citizenship and since 1948 they have elected their own governor. In 1952 the Constitution of Puerto Rico was adopted and ratified by the electorate.
A democratically elected bicameral legislature is currently in place (2013), but the United States Congress legislates many fundamental aspects of Puerto Rican life. The island’s current political status, including the possibility of statehood or independence, is widely debated in Puerto Rico. In November 2012, a non-binding referendum resulted in 54% of respondents voting to reject the current status. Among respondents to a second question about alternatives, 61% voted for statehood as the preferred alternative to the current territorial status. Statehood in this context means becoming a fully-fledged State of the USA, following in the footsteps of Alaska (03.January.1959) and Hawaii (21.August.1959). At the time of writing (2023) this has not yet happened.
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The left-hand map shows Puerto Rico in relation to other islands of the Caribbean. The right-hand map shows the principal islands. Please use your browser magnifier to enlarge. |
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The census of Puerto Rico reports that 75%+ of the country’s residents self-classify as “white”, but it is also the case that the vast majority are Hispanic or Latino by culture. Given the absence of religious motivations arising from Judaism or Islam, the rate of male circumcision in Puerto Rico is often reported as being low. Some estimates put it below 20%, a marked difference from the North American norm. A widely-quoted paper by Brian Morris and colleagues Estimation of country-specific and global prevalence of male circumcision puts it as 0.14%, which is not believable. Diggging down, it turns out that this was just the (tiny) proportion of Muslims and Jews in Puerto Rico. Professor Morris now accepts the 30% figure given below.
The subject of circumcision in Puerto Rico came to prominence in 2012 in consequence of the publication of a research paper suggesting that the procedure had no major effect on rates of transmission of the HIV virus in a Caribbean context. (Rodriguez-Diaz CE et al, in Journal of Sexual Medicine 2012. The paper was based on a random sample of 660 men in an STI clinic waiting room and, well, 30% were circumcised. Realistically, we have to take this figure as the average for the male population. In fairly short order, a rebuttal was published by Jeffrey D. Klausner, pointing out that the paper didn't look at the source of the infection - drug use (and needle sharing) is prevalent in Puerto Rico. Regardless of this dispute, it does seem to give us the best estimate available of male circumcision prevalence in Puerto Rico.
From a Puerto Rican reader
I am a 71 old Puerto Rican born on the island. I have been very interested in the subject of circumcision for some years. I would surmise the circumcision status in Puerto Rico as follows. In Spanish times (1508- 1898) the only circumcised people on our island must have been some of the West African slaves brought for the plantations. The locals (be they Arawak Taino Indians, Spaniards or some Portuguese) were all uncircumcised.
After the 1898 Spanish-American War the USA took control of our island. However, mainland US soldiers, administrators, Protestant missionaries, and businessmen did not encourage circumcision for the locals. Most came but did not stay. I know of a Protestant missionary who was an American born obstetrician and he did not encourage any of his children or grandchildren to be circumcised. The US authorities were intent on building hospitals, but I am not aware that even after WWI, circumcision was encouraged. The oldest Puerto Rican male I know who was locally circumcised as a newborn was born in 1936. His father studied medicine in the States and he wanted his sons circumcised. Some Puerto Rican pineapple workers went to Hawaii in the 1910's and 1920's to cultivate that West Indian crop. Eventually they adopted that island's circumcision culture.
The massive emigration to the States during the 40's, 50's and 60's meant that many poor uncircumcised Puerto Rican males went to the mainland. Many of the second and third generation mainland males born of Puerto Rican parents partly embraced the white American RIC, as a significant number of Hispanic workers from other Central and South American origins come around to do as well. I have asked many Puerto Rican veterans of WWII and the Korean War and none of them were circumcised by the Army.
Many Puerto Rican went to the United States to study medicine, since there was no medical school here on the island until 1953. The American Pediatric Society dictated the policies on newborn circumcision and it was this criterion that began to be applied locally by US educated pediatricians. By the early fifties at least the middle classes who had their kids born in private hospitals started to endorse RIC. But by the sixties even some of the government run public hospitals were insisting on RIC. Kids born in the metropolitan areas of San Juan, Ponce and Mayagüez were mostly circumcised at birth by pediatricians, not by obstetricians. I would estimate that in the sixties, 80% of high and middle class Puerto Ricans were circumcised. The poorer parents of kids born in the rural areas were not too inclined to circumcise.
The majority of my cousins were born in the sixties and they were routinely circumcised at birth. Usually mothers made the decisions upon recommendations from local pediatricians. But I know of some anti-circumcision pediatricians from my own generation, even though some of them were circumcised at birth. There were some older males (even in the high and middle classes) who did not want their sons circumcised for fear they would lose part of their virility.
But starting in the sixties and right up to now, there was another interesting development: a significant number of young kids and even grown men were rapidly circumcised when they started having urinary difficulties. I would say 20% of circumcised adult Puerto Ricans were circumcised in their teens or twenties. I know of a local Medical Doctor who opted to get circumcised in his eighties because he appreciated its benefits and this ended his frequent urinary infections.
Back to Puerto Rico: with the change of the APS guidelines on RIC there was a noticeable drop of circumcised babies on the island in the three decades of this new century. Public hospitals stopped doing it. I have spoken to a pediatrician who works in a public hospital in the metropolitan area of San Juan and he says the recent circumcision rate for boys born in public hospitals is lower than 10%. He himself doesn't know how to circumcise. And he does not speak of this possibility to parents of newborns. If they ask for circumcision they are referred to local urologists, who tend to favor RIC.
Puerto Ricans born in the US today have a higher percentage of infant circumcisions (perhaps 50%?) than those born in Puerto Rico. Many mothers (even middle class ones) are not allowing their babies to "suffer" this "cruel" procedure. I know of many male fathers who were themselves circumcised as babies, who yielded to this argument and thus did not circumcise their baby boys. But routine infant circumcision is still practiced in Puerto Rico in private hospitals and some pediatricians offer this as a good alternative. I can affirm with reasonable accuracy that the percentage of circumcised males today in Puerto Rico might reach 35% but it varies with age and social class: the urban older, middle and higher class Puerto Ricans are mostly circumcised at birth or during their lifetime.
ML
Wikipedia.
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