My mother land of Puerto Rico is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. Crippling debt has ravaged infrastructure and social institutions. While media has largely presented this as an abstract economic problem, the real effects of this catastrophe are witnessed in what Ada María Isasi-Díaz calls lo cotidiano: the everydayness of life. They are witnessed as one walks through my mother’s pueblo of Barranquitas and notices the overwhelming amount of closed and/or abandoned Puerto Rican businesses. They are witnessed when teachers have to choose between using the lights or computers in their classrooms. It will be witnessed when, in accordance to the PROMESA Bill passed this summer, 20-24 year old Puerto Rican workers will struggle on a minimum wage of $4.25 per hour. And though the history that brought us here is directly tied to white, U.S. Protestant denominations, many Protestants in the United States are unaware of this story.
The 1915 issue of Fuente: The Missionary Review of the World featured a map of Puerto Rico carved out to depict “zones of influence” for nine major Protestant denominations: Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Congregational, United Brethren, Christian Church, Lutheran, Missionary Alliance, and Disciples of Christ. Each zone was established in an 1899 committee agreement between these groups. That year leaders from each met in New York City to discuss how to engage the “new mission field” acquired in the Spanish-American War without “stepping on each others’ toes.” Their solution was to set parameters for where each particular denomination could evangelize and establish institutions. Presbyterians took the West, Disciples the Mid-North, Baptists parts of the island’s center, etc.
