Cordova

213
"Puerto Rico’s political and
cultural life was decisively shaped by the turbulent struggle between U.S. colonialism,
the nationalism of the old landed elite and later the popular classes, and the longings
for independence and autonomy of the intellectual classes. The resulting disquietude
over political identity has remained, as historian Gordon K. Lewis has put it, the
“magnificent obsession” of party politics in Puerto Rico and, by extension, the
keystone of the issue of national identity.3"

"Amid the chaos of this period, in 1938 Luis Mun˜oz Mari´n established the Partido
Popular Democratico and launched the campaign that would securely place him
atop the political hierarchy of Puerto Rico. Considered a watershed period in Puerto
Rican history, the campaign marked the beginning of the domination of island
politics by Mun˜oz Mari´n and his Partido Popular Democratico. In 1948 Mun˜oz
Mari´n became the first native islander popularly elected governor of the island, and
later he was the architect of its present commonwealth status. Hence, the electoral
triumph of the PPD in 1940 not only marked Mun˜oz Mari´n’s ascendancy, but also
the beginning of a political era and program that would redefine permanently much
of the island’s political culture."

"the Popular Democratic Party’s campaign was most notable for Mun˜oz
Mari´n’s dogged pursuit of the ji´baro vote. As politically disenfranchised highland
peasants, ji´baros were the centerpiece of the PPD’s campaign, with the party emblem
a ji´baro profile wearing a pava, the traditional field laborer’s hat, surrounded by the
words Pan, Tierra, Libertad (Bread, Land, Liberty)."

214
"The PPD campaign is remembered primarily for Mun˜oz Mari´n’s extensive travels
throughout the island delivering a message of social justice and encouraging ji´baros
to vote."

" These first four decades of the twentieth century, however,
also saw a discursive struggle over representations of ji´baros as touchstones of Puerto
Rican national identity, embodying the qualities of closeness to the land and
authenticity that branded them as bearers of true “Puerto-Rican-ness.”10 By 1938 and
the PPD campaign, ji´baros were firmly ensconced as part of the national symbolic of
the island, and represented, as historian Lillian Guerra has aptly put it, the “refuge
of the Puerto Rican soul.”11"

" An experienced and savvy political campaigner, Mun˜oz Mari´n recognized the
need to develop strong and broad support among the popular and working classes
if he was to defeat the established political machinery of Puerto Rican coalitional and
patronage politics.12 Yet he also understood that the semi-literate, marginalized, and
politically ignored ji´baros were naturally suspicious and distrustful of politicians. As
a result, any campaign directed at prompting ji´baros to see themselves as political
actors, and to mobilize them on behalf of a party, needed to break through that wall
of apathy and isolation."

"These rhetorical considerations
are paramount to understanding the consequentiality of the campaign,
because political parties and campaigns do not surface already formed, supported by
constituencies and bureaucratic apparatus, to take center stage in the life of a people.
Rather, it is in the crucible of public deliberation, of rhetorical engagement, that the
life of the polis emerges."

" The PPD campaign is a microcosm
through which to study the rhetorical development and management of a political
order and people."

"The rhetorical task of cultivating such groups or constituencies
takes the form of constituting political identities aligned with one’s own ideological
215
" positions, positions that others will come to accept as their own and, thus, from
which authority and legitimacy can be distilled. A crucial campaign task for Mun˜oz
Mari´n and the PPD became constituting a group or constituency that would support
its ideological agenda; however, Mun˜oz and the PPD did not establish just any
collective identity. In a demonstration of his political savvy, Mun˜oz Mari´n relied on
the reactivation of the already existing archetypal myth of the ji´baro."

"a small booklet
with the title Catecismo del Pueblo (The People’s Catechism), which unfolded in the
form of questions and answers regarding the party’s basic assumptions and orientations.
I hope to show that the Catecismo del Pueblo contributed to the development
of a political constituency by mediating a covenantal relationship between ji´baros
and the party."

"I hope to show that the Catecismo del Pueblo contributed to the development
of a political constituency by mediating a covenantal relationship between ji´baros
and the party. I rely in part on Kenneth Burke’s explication of the dialectic of
constitutions in A Grammar of Motives.14 Essentially, I analyze the Catecismo as
constitutive, as a catechism, and as mediating a covenant. In addition, I explore the
way that its rhetorical form facilitated the creation of a political identity and, hence,
of a political culture."

"Such considerations mark an important exploration into the
ways that constitutive processes facilitate the performance of identities, not just their
adoption. In general, I attempt, albeit modestly, to do what Burke notes in the
beginning of chapter 3 of The Rhetoric of Religion: “so [to] relate the ideas of
Creation, Covenant and Fall that they can be seen to explicate one another
inextricably….” My intent is to relate the ideas of catechism, covenant, and
constitution so they can be seen to implicate one another in the constitutive act of
the PPD campaign.15"

"Mun˜oz Mari´n’s stump speeches, artifacts, and other campaign discourse formed the
basis for summoning a people to take up their appointed role in history, which was
defined as upholding a Christian moral duty to advance social justice by voting for
the PPD."

"Even a cursory glance at the artifacts of the campaign reveals a rhetoric so redolent
with moralisms and religious injunctions that historian Luis Alfredo Lopez Rojas has
called it messianic.16 Speaking to the ji´baros about why they should not sell their
vote, Mun˜oz said that not selling the vote was how God wanted “all men of Christian
faith to act. Those who along with their vote sell their children’s bread deny their
own dignity as men and as Christians.”"
Reminds me of ways in which Chavez was remembered. 


216
"Mun˜oz Mari´n’s verses at the beginning of this essay also reflect this most palpable
and powerful feature of the PPD campaign discourse and ideological agenda:
namely, its prophetic tone. His tireless efforts on behalf of the poor and downtrodden,
coupled with a discourse that equated voting with meeting the moral obligations
of “men of Christian faith,” granted him a prophetic aura. Mun˜oz Mari´n’s
rhetoric was so infused with religious allusion and exhortation that Father Juan
Rivera Viera wrote in a letter to the campaign’s newspaper, El Batey, “I believe you
are the only political leader in Puerto Rico that dares to speak in CHRISTIAN.”18"

"The use of the word “rededication” is significant because in its most basic
sense it implies a renewal, a continuation of a commitment. Rededication simultaneously
speaks of a previous break with that same faith. In other words, a solemn
“rededication of our spirit” brings to mind that most fundamental of Western
religious concepts, the covenant. The powerful allusion to covenant allowed Mun˜oz
to renegotiate the context for remembrance, claiming that this was not a moment of
commemoration, because such rededications of “our spirit” already inscribe a
powerful remembering: the calling forth and self-recognition of the people of the
covenant."

"His covenantal rhetoric, which embraced such
themes as Christianity as a cry for social transformation, the liberation of the
oppressed and poor, and a call for a faith lived in community, not individually,
foreshadowed the Liberation Theology movement that was to emerge in Latin
America during the 1960s.20"

" with religious
allusion and with the construction of voting as a Christian moral duty, exploited the
notion of covenant as an observance of a historic commitment that all “men of
Christian faith” must uphold. As such, the PPD’s reliance on covenanting formed
the basis on which a particular political identity was to be constituted and mobilized.
21 Mun˜oz Mari´n’s rhetoric gave primacy to the establishment of a covenant
between the poor and the PPD and encouraged them to vote for the party as a means
to achieve political salvation.22"
217
salvation of the people

" T]o act against injustice, against deception, and against poverty, is a Christian duty
not only for leaders, but for every man…. That is why the campesino …must be a
force in the realization on earth, in his country, among his people, in his town, of
Christian justice for all.24

This religious language was a means to unify people, to bring them together as
participants in a community united by belief in a common creed, by communion
with the same transcendent substance. Religious appeals are among the most
powerful forms of identification because religious language makes connections to
values and beliefs, to visions, to hopes and promises that are rooted in the life of a
community of believers."

" The campaign’s religious
rhetoric shaped an audience through the constant reaffirmation of common values,
hopes, and visions, and instantiated the basis for appeals to action on a shared moral
identity, a distinct way of being both religious and political."

"interpellate a
constituency by deploying what Michael McGee has called the myth of “the
people.”28 The campaign’s discourse not only instantiated a collective, but also
reinforced the ideological values and orientations of a symbolic framework structured
in part around such ideographs as pan, tierra, and libertad, the concepts that
marked the theme of the campaign, along with the words pava and ji´baros and the
religious dimension of the campaign’s rhetoric. These terms worked together to
condense cultural values, invoking a sense of the people, and shaping political
consciousness."

"To solidify the invitation to covenant and to secure his position as prophet of a
new politics for the island, Mun˜oz Mari´n had to instantiate the covenantal relationship
he sought with the ji´baros in a form that would mark membership in a specific...
218
"political community and that would facilitate the translation of such constitutive
political and religious appeals into political action. The rhetorical appeal crafted
needed to be powerful enough to educate an isolated, semi-literate, and politically
marginalized population that, at best, regarded politicians with distrust."

"Moreover,
in forming such a constituency Mun˜oz Mari´n needed to counteract pervasive
political corruption that encouraged the buying and selling of votes. This massive
educational and motivational campaign began with Mun˜oz Mari´n’s extensive travels
throughout the island delivering his stump gospel, encounters with small, local
groups in which ji´baros were encouraged to ask questions about the political
situation of the island and the PPD’s doctrine. The face-to-face contact and the
directness of a message delivered in a powerfully resonant voice in familiar settings
took center stage in term of rhetorical effectiveness and trumped any other form of
address.31"
Reminds me of what is going on in Kenya?
 http://world.time.com/2013/03/09/kenyas-election-what-uhuru-kenyattas-victory-means-for-africa/

"Mun˜oz could
not sustain such a pace throughout the campaign. He needed to supplement his
stump speaking with a form that would capture the power of those encounters.
Accordingly, it is not surprising to find that the party created a campaign artifact
called the Catecismo del Pueblo. The word catechism evoked the notion of a covenant,
especially because in the context of Christianity, catechisms are repositories of the
faith, with doctrine laid out for abiding by the will of God."

"the Catecismo
was a small booklet of questions and answers designed to convey to the masses the
“answers to the questions they have about their life and their future.”32 Indeed, the
Catecismo was a summary of the foundational and fundamental principles of the
Partido Popular Democratico, a political primer to instruct potential voters in basic
political literacy."

"Typically, the clergy’s role was to impart knowledge, usually orally. The
abstract noun for this exercise was katechesis, which like katechumenoi derives from
the Greek katechizo, which literally means “to make to hear, to instruct.” Clerics,
thus, were oral instructors in the faith. Given this semantic history, Mun˜oz was
catechizing as he tirelessly visited the various electoral districts in the island
delivering his stump speech and dialoguing with ji´baros."

219
" As a container of principles, however, the Catecismo was also a preparatory device
for those seeking admission into a new faith and community. Catechisms are a
repository of dogma, of those truths that enable faithful readers to move beyond a
novitiate status into the full plenitude of the religious life. The Catecismo provided
the qualifications necessary for the ji´baros to assume the role of moral agent
prescribed in the text and urged by the campaign discourse.36 It resonated with its
audience in fulfilling such a function, in part, by following the already existing form
of the catechism in use by the Catholic Church in 1938 Puerto Rico, the Baltimore
Catechism, with which most people in the island were already familiar. As a result,
the Catecismo was a recognized social form that enabled the PPD to originate and
sustain a community of believers."

"The Catecismo del Pueblo was a political catechism, a document with a longstanding
tradition that appropriated catechetical form in order to educate the masses
about important secular subjects.37 Part of the power of the Catecismo del Pueblo was
its dual nature. The ambiguously religious and secular connotations granted it, as it
were, a stake in both worlds. The Catecismo had wide appeal because it presumed to
be a religious instrument appealing to the piety of its audience’s recognition of the
religious association, while setting forth political dogma. It played on the audience’s
religious beliefs and understanding of the significance of religious doctrine, while
offering the PPD’s political ideology as just such a creed."

"In following this traditional form, the Catecismo offered principles of order for a
community, a set of established guidelines and beliefs that were the basis for the
conduct of affairs of particular organizations and individuals. The Catecismo imparted
an orientation to action, offered dogmatic answers to natural questions,
defined in-groups (those who acted within the bounds of a system) and out-groups
(those who stood outside the system), and held the promise of benefits associated
with adherence to its pronouncements."

"discourse functions to organize and structure an individual’s or a culture’s experience
of time and space, the norms of political culture and the experience of communal
existence (including collective identity), and the linguistic resources of the culture
(including in particular, the stock of fundamental political concepts"

220
"Therefore, the conceptual blending that takes place through the Catecismo, its
reliance on religious language and on the form of a catechism, and its attendant
notions of covenant to legitimate a political conflict, ultimately granted it power to
shape a subject and to reshape the community’s expression of political subjectivity."

" Moreover, relying as it did on the myth of the ji´baros, the Catecismo
formulated the collective identity of a people, an identification that transcended
individual and class concerns. This identification was obvious at first glance because
the booklet sported the PPD’s emblem, the profile of the ji´baro, on its front cover.
In addition, the phrase del pueblo evoked a mythical people, the vision of a collective
mass sharing common beliefs and acting in concert.40 Although all of the questions
of the Catecismo were directed at formulating a collective identity, in its need to
define the issues at stake at that particular moment in the island, the Catecismo
named its subject through questions that helped to define that identity, and through
political commands that sought to facilitate its enactment."

"For instance, the first few
questions set the definitional stage: “Why should you be interested in reading the
Catecismo del Pueblo? What is Puerto Rico? Why do the immense majority of
Puerto Ricans live in such miserable conditions?” These questions assumed the
existence of a people, one with a need to read the Catecismo, who composed the
majority of Puerto Ricans"

" This enemy was identified as big corporations and other
economic interests that “take from Puerto Rico twenty million dollars every year
while you and your neighbors live in dire situations and cannot even provide a glass
of milk for your children” (10). The description of a common enemy and situation
mediated belongingness and action through the shared imagination of a community
understood, as cultural historian Benedict Anderson has noted, as a “deep, horizontal
comradeship.”41 The steps to combat this enemy amounted to acting in accordance
with party dicta. Therefore, an early question in the Catecismo was an
exposition of the PPD’s platform as the steps necessary to end the misery and
oppression in which the people found themselves. The response was, in effect, the
adoption of the PPD covenant (platform) mediated through the Catecismo."

Responsibility placed on jibaros

221
"The construction of time
and space within a religious dimension carried out through the Catecismo posited
the act of voting as transcendent for the subject."

" Charland has called the second ideological effect of constitutive
rhetoric, creating the illusion of a trans-historical subject.43 The religious allusions of
the Catecismo proposed a long and noble history for ji´baros as good Christian men
(a universal identity) poised once again to act in accordance with Christian moral
precepts."

" Mari´n’s stump speech: “A government that expresses the will of the people has to
come forth from those thousands of Bateys and poor houses of Puerto Rico….”44
Therefore, ji´baros were to emerge from their place of oppression, now transformed
into a space from which salvation would emerge, into a new space for social action,
the voting booth."
222
"Moreover, because support of specific policy initiatives,
especially through voting, is the raison d’eˆtre of a constituency, the answer to how
the people could assure a government that would serve their interests rather than
those of their enemies was: “Voting for men and parties that have not taken money
from corporations interested in controlling the elections” (12). Questions 14 to 20
in the Catecismo essentially repeat the PPD’s political mantra: voting is your
instrument for political salvation. For instance, the answer to question 14, “How will
you know who has not taken money from corporations?” was “It’s very simple.
Those who do not offer you a single cent for your vote” (12). Question 17, “How
can a government that will act in the best interests of the people be elected?” obtains
the response: “Voting against money. Voting against those who offer money [for
votes]. Voting in favor of those men who owe nothing to any corporation and who
will owe everything to your honest votes” (13). Consequently, voting defined the
scene (and time) in which the actor could act and held the promise of benefits
associated with adhering to a covenant with the party."

Takes Functions of catechism
"In fulfilling such functions, the Catecismo was constitutive of what the people
understood as political culture and of them as political actors. The Catecismo enabled
members of the constituted community to achieve a deeper understanding of the
“scriptures” of the party, of what was happening in the island politically, and how
the community could change the political situation. It also pointed to the importance
of voting to obtain a responsive government"

223
 "Thus, the Catecismo’s answer to question
13, “How?” repeated once again the familiar theme: “Voting for men and parties that
have not taken any money from corporations interested in controlling the elections.”
Such repetition reaffirmed the values held dear by the political community. Because
frequently reiterated messages can have an acclimatizing effect, the Catecismo
reiterated basic campaign themes in hopes of solidifying the ji´baros’ belief in an
often-repeated political gospel."

Selling votes:
"Questions 18 and 19
treat this profession of faith and the reader’s self-recognition as political actor by
asking: “What should you call those who sell their votes?” and by offering a longer
explanation of why selling the vote is ultimately self-defeating:
The person who sells his vote sells his children, for he is putting the government in
the hands of those who provide the money to buy the votes, the same who remain
interested in prolonging Puerto Rico’s misery because it is on the basis of such misery
that they earn millions…. In order to continue earning so many millions, corporations
need workers and farmers to remain in poverty; that’s why they provide the money to
buy votes … such has been the situation, he who sells his vote is selling his family’s
bread, and the happiness of his children. (14)
Moreover, this series of questions granted Mun˜oz Mari´n the opportunity to reaffirm
a crucial strategic principle of his campaign, direct engagement with ji´baros. Mun˜oz
Mari´n fervently believed in the educational power of dialogue, as enacted in his
campaign travels throughout the island, to imbue ji´baros with a sense of their
political worth and power."

"Hence, question 20, “What other things, besides not
selling the vote, can you do to assure that the Government will protect you instead
of protecting large interests?” obtains a response that highlights the ethics of
conversation with the people: “Don’t pay attention, nor follow political leaders from
San Juan who go behind your backs, without consulting, explaining, or answering
your questions.” Such an answer not only allowed the ji´baros to learn basic
components of a political faith, but also motivated them to engage in acts that would
cement their identity as political actors"

224
"Questions
20 to 29 asked community members to examine their consciences by raising
issues about how the political system in the island could be improved, what steps
could be taken by them to assure an honest government, and why voting against
candidates backed by special interests was not in their best interests"
I want to read about how someone then (or now?) read this!
"This call to conscience was, in effect, a call to search within for the reason for being.
This examination of conscience reinforced the audience’s ability to profess the faith,
to take full part in the political life of the community. All these questions directed
the reader implicitly to the PPD as anointed to take the responsibility to actualize
social justice as exemplified by Christian moral duty."

225
reinforce behaviors

"Hence, the Catecismo was an instantiation
of katechesis, a political primer primarily for the peasant masses. It reinforced
a constitutive discourse that sought to position and qualify ji´baros as political actors
of the PPD committed to securing social justice and Puerto Rico’s political salvation
in 1940."

"The Catecismo simulated
a lively conversation that had the stump speech as its underlying referent. In fact,
much of the power of the Catecismo to interpellate a subject, to recruit an
interlocutor, stemmed from the traditional catechism form of question and answer."

 dialogue?

" This exchange in the Catecismo was pedagogical in the way it rehearsed
an instructional relationship, the repetition of memorized answers to known questions.
The pedagogical nature of catechisms lent itself well to the purposes of the
campaign because, as Mun˜oz had explicitly noted, his campaign was one of
educating the ji´baros about basic political literacy."

226
"Such a sense of dialogue, based on the lived experience of the ji´baros, can be
construed as an expression of what Burke has called repetitive form, “the consistent
maintaining of a principle under new guises.”50 The recognition of form that Mun˜oz
Mari´n sought was meant to build an ethos of the campaign as a conversation with
the people, something other parties had not done in past elections, and which the
ji´baros greatly welcomed. Based on the richly multivocal experience of Mun˜oz
Mari´n’s campaign throughout the countryside, with its conversations with ji´baros,
the Catecismo was a social form that captured the essence of such conversations for
its readers. Because the Catecismo did not seek new answers to its questions, the
repetition of the form was powerful in conveying the sense of the interactions of the
stump speeches."

"repetitive form allowed the audience to recognize an underlying pattern, a substance
that held them together and offered a means by which to sustain communal
existence."

"The Catecismo
was not just a container of principles that would transform ji´baros into
political actors. On the contrary, in keeping with its religious metaphor and role as
a text to be enacted, it was a system of practices that facilitated the performance of
a political identity and made it intelligible. It was in the repeated play or performance
of the relationships and political demands advocated through the Catecismo as
a profession of faith that the ji´baros’ identity as political actors was solidified."
Time? Place?
 
"The principal performative demand of the Catecismo was that of voting for the
PPD, but the performances that constituted ji´baros as political actors encompassed
those outlined in the answers to its various questions and in the campaign discourse."

227

"The purpose of a catechism is to instruct a reader to internalize a body of beliefs that
mediate one’s identity as part of a religious community. Thus, the repetition further
solidified the notion of the ji´baros as a speaking subject (interlocutor), member of
a collective, and not merely an object of somebody else’s consciousness. In other
words, the Catecismo as social form is less a structured dialogue and more the
materialization of a dialogical encounter"

"Regardless of the power of
form, if the intended subject cannot read it, this version of the covenantal promises
of the campaign discourse would prove ineffective. The answer has four parts. (1)
Mun˜oz Mari´n urged those ji´baros who could read to read the Catecismo to those who
could not. (2) The Catecismo was a supplement to Mun˜oz Mari´n’s stump gospel; it
captured the essence of the PPD’s political doctrine and put it in the ji´baros’ hands
as reaffirmation of Mun˜oz Mari´n’s campaign rhetoric. (3) Possession of a catechism,
holding the compendium of faith, marked the recipient as one of the faithful.
Indeed, the mass distribution of catechisms to those who could and could not read
granted them an iconic role, turning them into a “semi-sacred object which would
secure some kind of reward for the giver …and might be treasured by the receiver
rather like a family Bible.”55 (4) Finally, the ji´baros, having heard Mun˜oz speak,
imbued the Catecismo with his ethos and cherished its association with the man and
his stump gospel, which the booklet continued to reinforce even if never read. The
Catecismo became a symbol of Mun˜oz Mari´n and his stump speeches."

228
" articulated the following creed: don’t sell your vote (stop sinning);
rededicate your spirit to the cause of the nation (arise from the fallen state and seek
thy God); and vote for me and the PPD in fulfillment of your Christian moral duty
to social justice (establish a covenant with me)."

229
consequences

sacred
"The Catecismo was a brilliant choice
to materialize a symbolic appeal that established consubstantiality between constituted
subjects and the PPD’s goals."