Editor’s note: This story is part of a series of notes on holidays in Puerto Rico with the purpose of informing our audience on these holidays, when they are held and their background. For more information about the holidays of our archipelago, visit the special site here.
He Independence Day of USA This is celebrated July 4 to commemorate the date on which the representatives of the 13 original colonies signed the declaration of independence.
According to the official website of the United States Government, Independence Day as a holiday It was ratified on June 28, 1870 under orders of the Federal Congress at that time.
The declaration of independence was the document signed by the founders in 1776 that declared the United States as an independent and free nation of the power of Great Britain.
Commonly, Americans celebrate the date with fireworks, ceremonies, speeches, parades and concerts, among other events while they also meet as a family or do barbecues.
That day, Government offices and officials, like banks and some private companies, have no job.
In Puerto Rico, the United States Independence Day is considered as a holiday due to the territorial relationship that the island maintains with that country after Spain gave to the island by completing the Spanish-American war.
Subsequently, with the installation of the Jones-Shafroth law and the granting of American citizenship to Puerto Ricans, Federal Government holidays were adopted among the Puerto Rican festivities.
Although in the United States it is celebrated with fireworks, it is not very common to see this practice or celebration around Puerto Rico while some sectors, mostly at the end of the independence movement on the island, question the commemoration.
