US media coverage of Puerto Ricans in the United States negatively impacted 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 took place in Ponce, a city in Puerto Rico, to celebrate Palm Sunday. The parade was filled with nearly 300 men, women and children, all admitted with a parade permit obtained from 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 The mayor of Ponce and the captain of the island police announced that the permit had been revoked by order of the governor of Puerto Rico and that the police had been instructed to stop the event by any means necessary. By this point, over 200 police officers had gathered, but the people at the march played the Puerto Rican national anthem and continued marching. The 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 new local outlets and locals, but in the continental United States a different story was told. The governments of Puerto Rico and the mainland United States attempted to hide what occurred during the parade by distorting history in their favor while overlooking and/or ignoring details and actions taken by the Puerto Rican and United States governments. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay Something similar happened with the Puerto Rican Revolution of October 30, 1950. This consisted of eight full armed uprisings in several cities against the Puerto Rican government by the Nationalist Party and an assassination attempt on President Truman to attract global attention and draw attention to Puerto Rican issues. As with the Ponce Massacre, the mainstream media and government of the continental United States ignored the entire revolution and twisted the story in multiple ways to promote a pro-American agenda. Both of these events were examples of mainland U.S. media criminalizing and degrading Puerto Rican events and actions, ignoring larger questions and issues in favor of focusing on how Puerto Ricans caused these events and downplaying U.S. involvement. This more often than not harms the Puerto Rican independence movement by degrading its actions and making it feel invisible in the eyes of the public. The actions taken by police on the day of the Ponce Massacre and the differences between how the continental United States media covered the movement directly demonstrates a pro-American agenda that hindered the Puerto Rican independence movement. The first example of the government's attempt to limit the damage was the initial reaction and attempt by the police to cover up the massacre. The plan behind all this was simply to make it appear that the nationalists present at the parade were the ones who started the brawl by shooting at the police. The ruse began when Puerto Rico's police chief, Colonel Enrique de Orbeta, arrived on the scene and called "El Mundo's photographer and several of his men, and they choreographed a series of 'live action' photos to demonstrate that the police were somehow “returning fire from nationalists who, at this point, were already lying dead in the street.” This didn't work, but the intent was clear: Orbeta saw how the Ponce massacre had painted him and his men and instead of admitting the consequences of their actions, their first instinct was to make it appear that they were to blamewere nationalists. This action was immediately followed by the reaction of Governor Blanton Winship, governor of Puerto Rico at the time, who "placed the blame on 'nationalist terrorists'" and had his island police "chase the wounded to the Tricoche hospital in Ponce, arresting them." there in their stretchers and hospital beds.” This has led to many families feeling forced to make false statements about the event to fit the narrative that the survivors of the massacre somehow killed themselves. The way the Puerto Rican government acted in the aftermath of the massacre, calling nationalists "terrorists" and committing mass arrests, expresses the strong need to criminalize Puerto Ricans in order to hide the actions of the police under the governor's orders. The most appalling example of the dismissal of this massacre can be seen in the discussion of the events by newspapers in the continental United States. The New York Times headline for the event was: “7 DEAD IN PUERTO RICO FLOOD, 50 WOUNDED AS POLICE FIRE ON NATIONALIST FIGHTERS; 26 SEIZED IN PONCE”. The Washington Post followed with a headline: “Puerto Rico Fighting Toll Reaches 10; Others almost dead.”. The first obvious problem with both titles was the inaccurate reporting of deaths and damage, and the use of the word “Riots”. The Times article described the event as; “... a protest campaign against the imprisonment of 8 nationalists convicted of sedition... Mayor Ormes of Ponce had given permission for the parade, but when the matter came to the attention of Colonel Enrique de Orbeta... he forbade it. He then goes on to say that the nationalists fired the first shot. The mainstream press in the continental United States actively downplayed the damage done to Puerto Rico and painted a narrative expressing that the massacre was somehow the fault of the nationalists. This also implies that the parade had been some sort of cover for a nationalist event rather than a peaceful religious celebration. None of the newspapers used the word massacre in their description of the events, instead favoring the idea that the parade had been a violent armed riot despite many sources. claimed that no Puerto Ricans were armed. Similar to the Ponce Massacre, as previously stated, the reaction to and 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 the events. Puerto Ricans in a destructive and criminalizing way. On October 28, the revolution began with a prison break, which led to the escape of 110 prisoners. The next morning J. Edgar Hoover brought sixty FBI agents to Puerto Rico to handle the situation. In Penuelas, Puerto Rico, on October 30, police chased a group of nationalists and a firefight broke out that left three nationalists dead. In Jayuya, Puerto Rico, fourteen nationalists surrounded a city police station and the police began shooting. The police station was in flames and the police had told journalists that 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 that same day, the United States also bombed Utuado. The omission of this event in Puerto Rico in continental United States newspapers and news outlets further demonstrates that the United States did not consider Puerto Rican citizens to be true Americans, because it was not important enough to mention the attack on U.S. citizens. Another example of dismissal of the revolution in his.