Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Holidays in Puerto Rico

I've written before that we Puerto Ricans love our holidays! In fact, we love everybody's holidays! This is a very special week in Puerto Rico. This week has three holidays, a fact I forgot yesterday when I went to take care of some government related business and found the offices closed. Oh, yeah! It's a holiday!

The sad thing is, my totally informal, totally unscientific survey of a dozen or so people found not one person who knew what the holiday was about. So in the interest of free information, here's the run-down of this week's holidays:

Yesterday celebrated the birthday of Don Luis Muñoz Rivera (1859–1916). Don Luis was a prominent journalist, poet, and politician who advocated independence from Spain and later, the United States. His son Luis Muñoz Marín was the first democratically elected governor of Puerto Rico. This holiday is celebrated on the third Monday of July.

Saturday, July 25, is one of the biggest holidays in PR, Commonwealth Constitution Day. It used to be called Occupation Day, "celebrating" the landing of U.S. troops at Guánica in 1898. Because the "real day" falls on Saturday, government offices and banks will be closed on Friday. this is a big enough holiday that, even though it is not a U.S. Federal holiday, the U.S. post offices here on the island are closed for the day. So, no mail on Saturday.

July 27 is the third holiday this week, celebrating the birthday of Dr. José Celso Barbosa (1857–1921). Dr. Barbosa was a medical doctor and an early advocate of statehood, founder of the Republican Party on the Island.

So there you have it, the week of three holidays. There is a rumor that there are three holidays in this one week to make up for the fact there are no holidays in August. August and June are the only months that do not have official holidays. (June has Noche de San Juan/Night of St. John, which is a de facto but not official holiday.) Maybe my birthday in June can become a holiday.

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