Current and former presidents of the Virgin Islands-Puerto Rico Friendship Committee and the mayor of Vieques joined the legislature’s Committee on Culture, Youth, Aging, Sports, and Parks Friday to celebrate Virgin Islands-Puerto Rico Friendship Day ahead of its 60th anniversary on Monday.
Close ties between the neighboring territories benefit both island archipelagos, said Vieques Mayor José A. Corcino Acevedo. Tourism, trade, and family ties bind the islands together.
Corcino celebrated direct flights from St. Croix to Vieques that started in August. A new hospital on the southern Spanish Virgin Island could help strengthen medical ties between the islands. Such flights have come and go, sometimes seasonally, sometimes with years between. Vieques was also actively recruiting police officers, teachers, and doctors, he said.
“I’m sure that good years are coming to strengthen this union,” Corcino said via a translator.
Former Governor Ralph Paiewonsky signed the Virgin Islands-Puerto Rico Friendship Day bill into law Feb. 20, 1964, establishing the second Monday in October as an official celebration of the ties that bind the islands — supplanting the traditional Columbus Day or Discovery Day.
Former Friendship Committee President Vera Falu Allende said she feared young Virgin Islanders were not aware enough of the importance in celebrating Virgin Islands-Puerto Rico camaraderie. She said a swiftly changing culture was leaving significant traditions in the past.
Falu, a former St. Croix hospital chairman, was born in Puerto Rico and moved to St. Croix and fell in love with the Virgin Islands, she said.
“Eventually we became part of America, but our bonds of friendship began when we were Caribbean people,” she said, adding those and other centuries-old ties came first.
Falu said people escaping slavery in the Virgin Islands took to sea to reach the relatively safe and free Puerto Rico islands centuries ago.
“They left St. Croix, jumped into the sea, abandoning a horrible life of enslavement,” she said. “A lot of people of Hispanic and Virgin Islands descent live there.
Falu urged older people to pass cultural heritage along to younger Virgin Islanders and Boricuas, including vocabulary and sayings, recipes and cooking styles, songs and stories.
“We speak half Crucian, half Puerto Rican,” she said.
At one point in the hearing, committee Chair Sen. Angel Bolques and Sen. Franklin Johnson started speaking in Spanish with the Vieques mayor, when more people joined in, some in English some in Spanish, the translator became confused as to when should be translated — much to the amusement of those present. In all, each of the senators present spoke at least some Spanish.
“Every one of my colleagues today spoke Spanish — every single one,” Bolques said. “Y’all remember that.”
Like many of the lawmakers, Sen. Diane Capehart said she was a proud Virgin Islander who has close family ties in Puerto Rico.
Luis Torres, current chairman of the Virgin Islands-Puerto Rico Friendship Committee, asked that the Senate allocate additional funds for future celebrations.
“This funding will be vital as we plan for future celebrations in the years to come, which we envision as landmark events that will highlight the strength of our cultural bonds and ensure that this cherished friendship continues to thrive for generations,” Torres said.
In 2024 thus far, the Friendship Committee, which is made up of volunteers, had collected more than $146,000 in donations, Torres said.
