Spanish official, 1991

Puerto Rico's official-language law is a short, sharp story with two dates, and this journal is where that story is told whole. On April 5, 1991, Law No. 1 made Spanish the only official language of the government of Puerto Rico. It repealed the Official Languages Act of February 21, 1902, which had put English and Spanish on the same formal floor after the United States occupation. Governor Rafael Hernández Colón of the Popular Democratic Party signed the 1991 law. The island later received Spain's Prince of Asturias Award, in public argument, for having kept Spanish through a century of contact with English.

The 1991 text did not prohibit English. Schools still taught it. The point was official business: the language of the Estado Libre Asociado's own government would be Spanish, with a stated commitment to English as a second language. That was a political act in a colony where English had been a tool of Americanization in classrooms for decades. It lasted less than two years.

On January 28, 1993, a new Law No. 1, under Governor Pedro Rosselló González of the New Progressive Party, restored Spanish and English as official languages and repealed the 1991 statute. Article 1 of the 1993 law is the line that remains on the books. Title One, Chapter 5 of the Laws of Puerto Rico now says that Spanish and English are official; it also provides translations and interpretations. Justia's compilation of that chapter still carries both session dates in its history line: Act April 5, 1991, and January 28, 1993.

Those twenty-two months are not a trivia question. They mark a fight over whether the island's public voice is Spanish first or statutory bilingualism. Everyday speech was already Spanish. The laws were about letterhead, courts, and the story the State tells about itself. English is still widely taught and unevenly spoken. Spanish is still the language of the street, of song, and of most government rooms. Both facts can sit in one paragraph. The dates are April 5, 1991, and January 28, 1993. Other constitutional fights — Jones-Shafroth, Foraker, PROMESA — are one-sentence neighbors in Statute, not this page. Remember the two session dates before saying the island "has always been bilingual" as if that were only a sentiment and not a statute repealed and restored.

Sources: Leyes de Puerto Rico, Título Uno, Capítulo 5, Idiomas oficiales (Justia); González-Rivera, actitudes lingüísticas y las leyes de 1991 y 1993, Centro Journal / Redalyc. Freeze 2026-08-22.