American media coverage of Puerto Ricans in the United States had a negative impact on Puerto Ricans and added to the pro-American agenda that the United States wanted to convey. In 1937, on March 21, an annual peaceful march celebrating Palm Sunday took place in Ponce, a city in Puerto Rico. The parade was filled with nearly 300 men, women and children, all authorized with a parade permit obtained by the nationalists. The mayor of Ponce and the captain of the island police announced that the permit had been revoked by order of the governor of Puerto Rico and that the police had been instructed to stop the event by any means necessary. At that point, more than 200 police officers were gathered, but the people at the parade played the Puerto Rican national anthem and continued marching. Police opened fire on unarmed civilians for thirteen minutes and killed 17 unarmed civilians, including 17 men, 2 police officers, a woman and a 7-year-old girl. This was known as the Ponce Massacre and was immediately addressed as such by local news media and locals, but in the continental United States a different story was told. The government of Puerto Rico and that of the US mainland attempted to cover up what happened during the parade by distorting history in their favor by overlooking or dismissing the details and actions taken by the Puerto Rican and US governments. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Something similar happened with the Puerto Rican Revolution of October 30, 1950. It involved eight total armed revolts in different cities against the Puerto Rican government by the Nationalist Party and one assassination attempt against President Truman to get the world's attention and bring attention to Puerto Rican problems. As with the Ponce massacre, the mainstream media and government in the continental United States dismissed the entire revolution and subverted history in many ways to promote a pro-American agenda. Both of these events were examples of the continental U.S. media criminalizing and degrading Puerto Rican events and actions, ignoring larger issues and problems and focusing on how Puerto Ricans caused these events and downplaying U.S. involvement . This has more often than not harmed the Puerto Rican independence movement by degrading its actions and making it feel invisible in the public eye. The actions taken by the police on the day of the Ponce massacre and the differences between how the mainland American media reported on the movement directly demonstrate a pro-American agenda that has hindered the Puerto Rican independence movement. The first example of the government's attempt at damage control was the initial response and attempt by the police to cover up the massacre. The plan behind this was simply to make it appear that the nationalists at the parade were the ones who started the fight by shooting at the police. The ruse began when Puerto Rico's police chief, Colonel Enrique de Orbeta, arrived on the scene and called "the El Mundo photographer and several of his men, and they choreographed a series of photos." live” to show that the police were “in some way responding to the shooting of the nationalists who, at that time, were already lying dead in the street”. It didn't work, but the intention was clear: Orbeta saw how Ponce's massacre portrayed him and his men, and rather than admit the consequences of their actions, their first instinct was towas to make people believe that it was the fault of the nationalists. This action was immediately followed by the reaction of Governor Blanton Winship, then governor of Puerto Rico, who "blamed it on 'nationalist terrorists'" and requested that "his island police follow the injured to Tricoche Hospital." of Ponce, arresting the wounded.” them on their stretchers and their hospital beds.” This has caused many families to feel compelled to make false statements about the event to fit the narrative that survivors of the massacre somehow murdered themselves. The way the Puerto Rican government acted in the aftermath of the massacre, by calling the nationalists “terrorists” and carrying out mass arrests, expresses a very strong need to criminalize Puerto Ricans in order to hide the actions of the police under the orders of the governor. The most appalling example of the rejection of this massacre can be seen in the discussion of the events in newspapers across the American continent. The New York Times headline for the event read: “7 DEAD IN PUERTO RICO RIOT, 50 INJURED BY POLICE FIRING ON NATIONALIST FIGHTING; 26 SEIZED IN PONCE”. The Washington Post then headlined: “Puerto Rico riot toll reaches 10; Others are almost dead. The first glaring problem with both titles was the inaccurate account of deaths and damage, as well as the use of the word "riot." The Times article described the event as: "...a protest campaign against the imprisonment of eight nationalists convicted of sedition...Mayor Ormes de Ponce had authorized the parade, but when the case was brought to the attention of Colonel Enrique de Orbeta... he banned it." He then adds that it was the nationalists who fired first. The mainstream press on the American continent actively downplayed the damage done to it. Puerto Rico and painted a narrative that the massacre was somehow the fault of nationalists. This also implies that the parade was some sort of cover for a nationalist event rather than a peaceful religious celebration. the word massacre in its description of the events, instead favoring the idea that the parade had been a violent armed riot, despite many sources claiming that no Puerto Ricans were armed. noted previously, the reaction and media coverage of the Puerto Rican Revolution of October 30, 1950 was treated similarly and reinforced the idea that the United States was actively trying to portray Puerto Rican events in a destructive and criminalizing manner. On October 28 the revolution began with a prison break, which led to the escape of 110 prisoners. The next morning, J. Edgar Hoover sent sixty FBI agents to Puerto Rico to handle the situation. In Penuelas, Puerto Rico, on October 30, police hunted down a group of nationalists and a shootout broke out, resulting in the deaths of three nationalists. In Jayuya, Puerto Rico, fourteen nationalists surrounded a town police station and the police began shooting. The police station was on fire and police told reporters there were hundreds of nationalists armed with machine guns, leading to an American bombing of the city the next day. It was known as "the only time in history the United States bombed its own citizens." Later the same day, the United States also bombed Utuado. The omission of this event in Puerto Rico from newspapers and news outlets in the continental United States makes it even clearer that the United States did not consider Puerto Rican citizens to be true Americans, as this.