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My mainland son is married to a Puerto Rican woman. They met while she was comleting college in our city and my son was a high school dropout with dyslexia. I did not have the impression she was particularly religious. They lived together several years while she finished college then moved to Miami as a compromise since she hated winter and I wanted to be able to drive to visit once a year, Eventually they got married and had a child. Then the economy blew up and they moved to PR where she had good contacts for employment. They had another child and their first is now in college, They are still happy together and live in faithfulness and love. My son has his own small construction business. They are not very religious, but they are loyal and self supporting, and their lives seem to encompass a fair number of conservative values and they have been together for more than 25 years. My son is actually the more laid back of the two. When he was in his teens and worried about his dyslexia, I told him not to worry, that with his personality he could find a good woman who would take care of the paper work for the family which is what happened.

Anecdotes are meaningless when confronted about the facts on the island. My fiancées parents were both born and raised on the island. They and their family are “good people,” but it doesn’t negate the fact that the majority of the island are on some form of public assistance and that both the PPD and PNP are both more in line with the Democrats than any right wing ideology. Both parties promise more and more bennies from a smaller pie and the people oblige by voting for them.

The only two groups of people who seem to be “natural conservatives” re the descendants of Palatine Germans and Scots Irish on the mainland, but that’s a whole ‘nother discussion.