(Don) Eleuterio Quiñones, voiced by Sunshine Logroño, is a recurring fictional character in Puerto Rican radio and television. It is supposed to depict a die-hard supporter of statehood for Puerto Rico, whose passion for the subject and support of the New Progressive Party of Puerto Rico verges on the absurd. The character is loosely based on the archetypical Puerto Rican peasant, the jibaro, with a sizeable dose of Archie Bunker thrown in.
Eleuterio, the character Eleuterio Quiñones is reportedly a 75-year-old man, divorced from his Puerto Rican wife (who left him for an American drill sergeant), who lives in a blue house on the Camarones section of Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, along with his son Elpidio. Due to his passionate love for the United States he flies the Stars and Stripes in front of his house. Since he's the only one in the barrio with the American flag in his porch, his neighbors call the house "El Correo", "The Post Office" in Spanish. The house is blue, given Eleuterio's affiliation to the New Progressive Party of Puerto Rico, whose logo is blue.
Don Eleuterio was depicted in the early incarnations of the character as a grumpy old man, easily angered by life's minor irritations. Recent incarnations depict him as less irritated (and more tolerant) than before. However, Eleuterio is still prone to fits of anger, and throws things quite loudly whenever he loses an argument and proof is shown to him, or when something personal happens to him that goes against his political philosophy (such as his son Elpidio joining a PDP campaign rally for a joyride, for example).
Don Eleuterio despises the Puerto Rican culture, but is a direct product of it. His commentary on Puerto Rican culture is affected by his personal experiences as a native of Puerto Rico and as a World War II veteran (in the character's beginnings, more recently the Korean War is used as to keep up with time). However, he has never set a foot outside Puerto Rico. His experience with true American culture is limited to the time he was stationed at a local United States Army camp near his home during the war. As a consequence of this, he considers the proverbial destination of most recent Puerto Rican émigrés, Orlando, Florida, to be the statehooders' equivalent of Mecca, with the giant Mickey Mouse-eared water tank near the entrance of Walt Disney World as the Kaabah.
The character's name allegedly came from using the Bristol Almanac, a long-standing almanac popular to Latin America that is published by New York City soap maker Murray and Kemp, and is similar in concept to Poor Richard's Almanack, as a source of baby names. The Almanac lists the Catholic saints of each day, from which a name could be selected for a newborn depending on the day of his birth; in theory this puts Don Eleuterio's birthday as occurring on 20 February, the day of St. Eleutherius of Constantinople, and right after the consecutive (and purely coincidental) birthdays (17 February - 19 February) of three Puerto Rican governors: Luis A. Ferré, Luis Muñoz Marín and Roberto Sánchez Vilella (in that order). Eleuterio hates his name, since it is decidedly non-American. In reality, Logroño used "Eleuterio" as a name to reinforce the character's Puerto Ricanness, since the coquí, a frog native to Puerto Rico, has the scientific name of Eleutherodactylus coqui. Since the coquí has traditionally (and erroneously) been viewed as so local to Puerto Rico as to die if taken out of his habitat (proven wrong by its recent acclimatization to Hawaii), the name "Eleuterio" evokes a similar connotation.
Don Eleuterio is in record as being homophobic, a misogynist, a hater of reggaetón, and intolerant of Puerto Rican cuisine, and particularly "gandinga" (tripe) as the worst offender. He is also a racist, although a bit ashamed of being so since he is racially mixed himself. He uses the term people of color (which may be politically correct to some English language speakers but a derogatory euphemism in Spanish) to refer to blacks. He essentially considers most poor and young Puerto Ricans as being potential drug addicts. Yet, he claims constantly to be "completamente neutrarrrr" (sic), a phrase mispronounced on purpose to depict Eleuterio as lacking culture.
However, none of these prejudices are openly vented by Don Eleuterio until the "right" opportunity comes about -most often when a news item is commented and Eleuterio takes off in a tangent that makes no sense when related to it. For example, his racism usually flows to the surface when commenting about the stereotypical incompatibility in sizes between the genitalia of multiracial couples. He commonly insults callers to his radio program as being "huelepega" (glue sniffers), and wonders when the offender is going to inject his dose of marijuana (sic) next. According to Eleuterio, the character's creator (Logroño, who Eleuterio claims to have no relation with) is a "tecato", a heroin addict.
Eleuterio speaks very little English. He claims he will not say an English word in public, as to not humiliate any Puerto Ricans talking to him, but in reality he only uses two English phrases in daily conversation: "Yes" (with which he answers almost any question asked to him in English) and "An Sori" ("I Am Sorry"), the first phrase he says whenever he encounters any American. He begs for forgiveness to Americans for the poor use Puerto Ricans have made of everything the country "has bestowed" on Puerto Rico, from the English language to welfare, and on to hamburgers, hot dogs and apple pie.
Eleuterio's trademark phrase, when praising anything American or pro-American, is the refrain of an old Pentecostal hymn in Spanish, "¡Alábalo, que Vive!" ("Praise -Him-, for -He- lives!"). A converse phrase he mentions when he is angry is "¡Maldita sean los cue'nos (d)er Diablo!" ("Damn be the horns of the Devil!")
Known, but not seen In theory, no one from the general public has ever seen Don Eleuterio. Whenever a television comedy sketch was featured where Eleuterio would be a part of, he would speak hidden inside his house, from behind a window. Reportedly this occurs because Eleuterio is ashamed of his kinky hair and dark skin. He blames the local tap water for his hair's coarseness; as for his skin color, he considers himself white,Wikipedia reference to "White (people), as perceived in Latin America along with 84% of the Puerto Rican population.
In practice, Logroño dressed once as Eleuterio Quiñones (namely, as a Puerto Rican peasant) for a televised episode of Los Rayos Gamma where Silverio Pérez's birthday was being held. This is the only known public appearance by Eleuterio ever recorded. In other public appearances, Logroño hides from view and uses a microphone to do the character as a voice-over.
Political views In the character's beginning, Eleuterio was, first and foremost, an admirer of NPP leader Carlos Romero Barceló, particularly Romero's stubborn strength as a populist contender against the Popular Democratic Party of Puerto Rico. His initial idea of Puerto Rican statehood resembled that of "jíbaro statehood", the dual concept of Puerto Rican cultural preservation under statehood that Romero promoted in his book "Statehood is For The Poor". Therefore, Eleuterio would speak fondly of Puerto Rican food and music (namely, that of Rafael Hernández Marín) as a complement to American cultural icons such as Tommy Dorsey. Of course, this image would be taken to the extreme: Don Eleuterio claims that Burger King outlets would be physically deflated as a balloon and rolled, as to be taken out of the country as if they were a roll of linoleum, should independence ever be granted to Puerto Rico.
As a Romero supporter, Eleuterio viewed the emergence of Pedro Rosselló as NPP leader with great skepticism. As Rosselló consolidated his leadership within the NPP, however, Eleuterio grew acceptant of the less Puerto Rican-centric view of the country Rosselló's supporters had within the NPP.
As time passed, Eleuterio started inviting political leaders to his radio program. Politicians from outside the NPP took these invitations in stride, but NPP leaders were hesitant at first, since they feared guilt by association. However, as many NPP leaders broke the ice, eventually Romero visited his program and took advantage of the character's popularity. So have most NPP leaders, with the notable exception of Rosselló.
Eleuterio is very publicly pro-American, but some topics are off-limits in his radio and television appearances, namely 9/11 and specific details about the Iraq War.
Eleuterio's son, Elpidio Elpidio Quiñones (sometimes referred to by the diminutive, Elpidito) is the son of Eleuterio, and is also played by Logroño. Contrary to Eleuterio, Elpidio has a very public profile. He is a special education patient, reportedly 39 years old but with the mental age of an eighth grader, with the sophomoric sense of humor to match. He constantly wears a Superman t-shirt, and has a large overbite (Logroño plays the character wearing a dental prosthesis).
Elpidio is, therefore, naïve enough not to understand the ulterior motives of his classmates. Two of his neighbors are particularly guilty of charging admission to other classmates to show Elpidio naked from the waist down and exhibiting his rather overdeveloped genitalia at school. Elpidio, being an adult, is not carded for purchasing liquor, and is tricked into buying beer and pornography by his mates.
Elpidio appears sometimes, either in radio or in television, alongside his mutt, Matruco, a rather affable dog who likes his belly to be scratched (something that inevitably raises Elpidio's curiosity about the dog's penis).
At times, Don Eleuterio has been accused of mistreating his son, particularly because he never changes the family diet; since the only decent cooking recipe Eleuterio knows was the one he learned as attendant of a mess hall while in the Army (and since cooking anything more extravagant would be, in his view, effeminate), he feeds his son steamed white rice, mashed potatoes and canned corn every single day (and sometimes for both lunch and dinner).
Elpidio is (or was) a regular character in various television series produced by Logroño: "De Noche Con Sunshine", "El Condominio" and "Por el casco de San Juan". On these programs, recurring character "Doña Soto" (played by Suzette Bacó) claims, after seeing Elpidio naked accidentally a few times, that "Él no es ningún nene ná" ("He's no little kid, awright!")
Eleuterio's love life Don Eleuterio's first wife Virginia, left him for an African American drill sergeant, which is one of his justifications for being racist. This occurred when Elpidio was a little boy; custody was granted to Eleuterio since she fled the Puerto Rican jurisdiction. He then spent years without female company.
Eventually, Don Eleuterio befriended a widow, a Cuban pharmacist, named Iris Eduarda, who is also a die-hard pro-statehood supporter (as many exiled Cubans in Puerto Rico are). Although Eleuterio denies it, they seem to have shared intimate moments; more than a few times she has mentioned the fact that Eleuterio uses "la pildorita azul" ("the little blue pill"), in reference to Viagra.
In recent programs Iris Eduarda has antagonized with listeners, since she is currently demanding that Eleuterio leave his radio program, marry her and move to a post-Fidel Castro Cuba. Her interventions have angered listeners, who constantly advise Eleuterio against marrying her. Eleuterio is yet to decide whether he'll marry her or not.