- Ronald Ávila-Claudio – @ronaldavilapr
- BBC News World
image source, Felisa Rincón de Gautier Museum
In the early 1950s, an event occurred in Puerto Rico that no one thought would ever happen. Under the rays of the sun that warm the island all year round, and that allow its inhabitants to enjoy the beach in winter, thousands of children participated in a snow “war” in a park in San Juan.
They laughed, they threw balls and, like in the movies that show the “typical” American Christmas, they built snowmen.
What happened was not an extraordinary phenomenon of nature. The Caribbean territory maintained its usual tropical temperatures. The snow reached Puerto Rican soil thanks to the determination of an important political personality remembered for her eccentricity, but also for her social works.
Felisa Rincon de Gautierthe first woman mayor of San Juan (and the first woman mayor of a capital in the Americas, according to the US National Museum of Women’s History), convinced a powerful US airline in 1952 to transport snow to the island .
image source, Felisa Rincón de Gautier Museum
Eastern Airlines brought snow to Puerto Rico for three years, starting in 1952.
He wanted Puerto Rican children, who mightn’t travel to the mainland US, to experience the cold. Even that they might taste the snow like her once upon a time, when she lived in New York during her youth.
For some, it was just an act of mimicry culturalat a critical moment in the history of Puerto Rico, since that year its status as an associate state of the United States would be approved. For others, it was nothing more than a disinterested act of the mayor, also known as Dona Fela.
“It was the most successful event you can imagine. They grabbed the snow, threw it at them. There were children, but also adults, they were happy,” says Hilda Jiménez Fiol, a 97-year-old woman from Puerto Rico who was a personal assistant at Rincón de Gautier and director of social development of the Puerto Rican capital.
The initiative reinforced the image of the mayoress, who remained in power for 23 years and who came to be recognized for her work by governments and academic institutions around the world.
image source, Felisa Rincón de Gautier Museum
The initiative took place in a park in San Juan, where thousands of people gathered and snow was unloaded from refrigerated trucks.
Three women in a man’s world
Hilda tells the story as if she were still living it. Her voice is heard somewhat broken, but lucid and sure.
He assures that Doña Fela was “an exceptional person.”
He took office in 1946, following the resignation of a San Juan mayor. He organized the distribution of food and shoes to poor children, created care centers for the elderly and nursery schools, and renovated a hospital that would later become a major health institution on the island.
In the years that he led the city, the population grew from 180,000 to more than 600,000.
image source, Felisa Rincón de Gautier Museum
Doña Fela was present at the activity, where she also threw snowballs and played with the children. She always wore the customary braids in her hair.
And precisely in 1952 an executive at Eastern Airlines invited her to be the keynote speaker at a company event in Florida. “We were only three women in the activity, Mrs. Fela, her sister and me,” says Hilda.
There were regarding 400 delegates from the airline at the conference. When she finished her participation, an executive approached and asked Hilda if she might give the mayor a gift for her appearance.
“She asked me if I might give her a gift. Maybe flowers or a watch. But I told her no, not to give her gifts because she wouldn’t accept them. The next day, during a breakfast where the president of Eastern Airlines was present, they insisted, she replied that you would like me to bring snow to your little boys in Puerto Ricoso they might grab a mallet with their bare hands,” the woman tells BBC Mundo.
A few days following returning to Puerto Rico, the airline contacted the mayor’s office to let them know that it accepted Mrs. Fela’s proposal.
The snow, which – according to a WNYC radio program produced by The New Yorker – was arriving from Vermont, was unloaded at a small San Juan airport and transported in refrigerated trucks to a park where the public would gather.
“The planes had the luggage downstairs, in a kind of canoe. That’s where the snow that was transported was placed,” says Hilda, who remembers the happy faces of those who attended, despite the fact that the snow melted quickly in her hands.
In the activity there were costumes for children. From police officers, firefighters or nurses. There were also people dressed up as the Three Wise Men, says Hilda.
image source, Felisa Rincón de Gautier Museum
The first year, the initiative was held in March, but the following two occasions were in January, for the eve of Three Kings Day, a typical holiday in Puerto Rico, where it is said that Christmas lasts until February, when it ends. the Candlemas.
And there was Dona Fela, playing with the little ones. Throwing snowballs. With her hair always braided and her flashy outfits.
an unlikely race
Doña Fela, who was born in 1897 into a wealthy family, had to confront her father and husband, both lawyers, when she decided to run for mayor of San Juan.
At the time, she was already a recognized businesswoman in the city. She had an establishment in which she sold clothes, a trade she learned in New York, where she was a seamstress during her youth.
image source, Felisa Rincón de Gautier Museum
The snow was transported in a kind of “canoe” that was right on the bottom of the two planes that traveled to the island. In this part the suitcases were placed.
He also had experience militating in political parties and social movements. She was active in the campaigns for women’s suffrage on the island and, in fact, in 1932 she was the fifth woman to register for suffrage once it was approved.
She herself recounted in an interview that it was not until a storm affected Puerto Rico that she decided to stand up to her father and husband. Hundreds of people, she says in a recorded conversation that is now posted on YouTube, sought refuge in her house.
Seeing them wet and hungry, he made arrangements for the group of people to take shelter in a school near his home in San Juan. And he even bought food with his own money to feed them.
“It was the first time that I told my father and my husband that I would be the mayoress of San Juan,” she said.
“They are not going to stop me. If people come to me, I must have authority to be able to solve their problems,” he told both men, according to his account in the interview.
image source, Felisa Rincón de Gautier Museum
He directed the city from 1946 to 1969. His years in the municipality were not without controversy. According to The New York Times, she was once accused of nepotism, since she hired her relatives to work for the government of San Juan.
With his political savvy, he dismissed the accusation, the newspaper maintains. “I wish I had 20 more nieces, they work better for less,” would answer Doña Fela, who remained active in public life in Puerto Rico until her death in 1994, although she did not hold another public office.
What no one can deny, as the Times comments, is that the woman, for better or worse, worked hard to please her constituents.
image source, Felisa Rincón de Gautier Museum
It became clear when he received San Juan residents every Wednesday to listen to their problems or when he had the audacity to ask for planes full of snow for the children.
“My opponents campaign right before the election and then they disappear.” “I start campaigning the day following the election and I never stop,” she once said.
