Carpetas, started by governor Blanton Whinship in the 1930’s, were used to systematically spy on thousands of Puerto Ricans from the 1930’s to the 1980’s. It was so widespread it even became a verb in Puerto Rico, te carpetearon.

Carpetas contained secret police dossiers that included a realm of personal information. Calls would be tapped, letters intercepted at the post office, photos, religion, political affiliation, family records, license plates and many other kinds of personal information was included. Usually carpetas were about 20 pages long, yet some, such as the extensive file on Puerto Rican Nationalist Party leader Pedro Albizu Campos was 4,700 pages long. In fact, 16,000 files were extensive, containing personal information on individuals that were considered dissidents. Of the 100,000 people who had carpetas, some 74,000 were under “political police surveillance”¹ Some Carpetas were even opened on entire neighborhoods and geographical areas. Another 60,000 were opened on organizations and even vehicles.

“The surveillance program in Puerto Rico was one of — if not the — longest continuous targeted surveillance program conducted on US Citizens by their own government. […] one of the worst things about the program was that it relied on Puerto Ricans spying on each other for the cops — with betrayals happening within families, and among friends. 

From Audio Pocast, La Brega Ep. 3 ‘An Encyclopedia of Betrayal’.

People who were “carpeted” could be fired from jobs, be imprisoned, have education ended and be permanently discredited. Put simply, carpetas destroyed people’s lives. If you had a carpeta, you would be put on a black list and you could forget about getting a job.

FBI director J Edgar Hoover said this in a memo in 1961,

We must have information concerning their weaknesses, morals, criminal records, spouses, children, family life and personal activities other than independence activities.’

It was clear that he wasn’t just concerned in monitoring independistas and nationalists, he wanted to control and surveil every aspect of Puerto Rican lives. They even made Puerto Ricans believe that these carpetas were something that only independistas spoke about; a myth like la llorona or el cuco.

There was even a carpeta (seen below) on the governor, Luis Muñoz Marin. They used this report to control him. The threat of being exposed as a “narcotics addict and heavy drinker” kept the governor right where they wanted him, on a very tight leash, doing whatever they directed.

When decades of surveillance finally came to light, the government wanted to dispose of them, then something crazy happened. The court said that these files could not be destroyed and in fact had to be returned to the families that had been watched. This is the only time this has happened in world history. The files were returned to victims in the early 90’s, including the names of the informants. But it gets worse, people realized that many times the informants who had filed these reports were close friends and family; snitches disguised as fellow independistas. Families were torn apart and friendships shattered. The affects of carpetas had lasting impacts on Puerto Ricans. Perhaps Nelson Denis said it best,

As befits a sun-kissed island with wonderfully fertile soil, Puerto Ricans were an open, gregarious, cheerful people – but sixty years of carpetas, police informants, and neighbors spying upon each other, had affected the national character of Puerto Rico. It had burned fear, secrecy, lying, betrayal and mistrust into its collective experience. The carpetas drove a permanent wound into the psyche of Puerto Rico. It is a wound that may never fully heal.

Denis, Nelson A. “Carpetas.” WAR AGAINST ALL PUERTO RICANS, 25 Feb. 2014, waragainstallpuertoricans.com/carpetas/.

Sources and Notes:

Denis, Nelson A. “Carpetas.” WAR AGAINST ALL PUERTO RICANS, 25 Feb. 2014, waragainstallpuertoricans.com/carpetas/.

Casanova-Burgess, Alana. La Brega. Futuro Media Group and WNYC Studios, 24 Feb. 2021, . http://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/la-brega/articles/encyclopedia-betrayal, ep. 3. Accessed 22 Sept. 2021. audio podcast.

Denis, Nelson A. War against All Puerto Ricans : Revolution and Terror in America’s Colony. New York, Bold Type Books, 2016.

Gregory, Chris. “Las Carpetas.” Las Carpetas, 2014, chrisgregory.co/carpetas/. Accessed 22 Sept. 2021.

I highly recommend this podcast. It has some incredible in depth research on the carpetas and they talk to some real victims of the carpetas.

. https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/la-brega/articles/encyclopedia-betrayal