La Perla Ward

bar­rio-la-per­la

La Perla Ward, Old San Juan, Puerto RicoIn Puer­to Rico the word “arra­bal” means “slum”, and it is com­mon­ly asso­ci­at­ed with poor crime rid­den parts of the Island.  How­ev­er, the word “arra­bal” has its roots in the Ara­bic lan­guage and it actu­al­ly means “area out­side the wall”.

In medieval times cities in Europe would have huge walls all around them to pro­tect the towns­peo­ple from attack­ing ene­my forces. The rich and well to do would live inside the city walls, while the poor would gen­er­al­ly live in huts out­side the walls in the area called “el arra­bal”.  As cities grew the walls would be moved fur­ther out, those that were less poor would move inside the city walls, and the poor­est of all would remain out­side in the “arra­bal”.

In the Spanish/Arabic sense “La Per­la” is the only true “arra­bal” in Puer­to Rico. Not because it’s a slum or not, but because it sits just out­side of the city wall.  How­ev­er, don’t tell the peo­ple that live there today that they live in an “arra­bal” because in every­day Puer­to Rican lin­go that would be offensive.

How­ev­er, the truth is that “La Per­la” is the most eco­nom­i­cal­ly depressed area in old San Juan.  And many peo­ple say that most of the crime and drug traf­fick­ing that goes on in the city is com­mit­ted by “La Per­la” residents.

There are no tourist attrac­tions in “La Per­la”, just the homes of hun­dreds of low income Puer­to Ricans who have lived there for close to 100 years.  How­ev­er, as you can see, the area makes for great pic­tures, espe­cial­ly from the Fort San Cristóbal van­tage point.

Orlando Mergal buys all his photo equipment at B&H

Dis­clo­sure of Mate­r­i­al Con­nec­tion: Some of the links in this post are “affil­i­ate links.” This means that if you click on a link and pur­chase an item, I will receive an affil­i­ate com­mis­sion. Regard­less, I only rec­om­mend prod­ucts or ser­vices that I use per­son­al­ly and believe will add val­ue to my read­ers. I am dis­clos­ing this in accor­dance with the Fed­er­al Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Con­cern­ing the Use of Endorse­ments and Tes­ti­mo­ni­als in Advertising.”

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