Puerto Rico doesn’t have to be ‘American’ to be a friend of America. Let it be what it already is — a nation
Puerto Rico: Statehood for a “Nation” That Will Never, Ever Assimilate?
Puerto Rico: Statehood for a “Nation” That Will Never, Ever Assimilate?
“Puerto Rico doesn’t have to be ‘American’ to be a friend of America. Let it be what it already is — a nation.”
So editorializes Javier A. Hernández, a Puerto Rican author, linguist, educator, and former federal official. And Hernández is one more thing, too: a pro-Puerto Rico sovereignty advocate. So his passions are clear. Yet so is his point:
Should Puerto Rico ever become a state, it would never, ever assimilate into the United States.
Nor would it be reasonable to expect it to.
Absorbing the island would be, in fact, a bit like accepting Spain as the 51st state and counting on assimilation. Far from this, however, the “Pearl of the Caribbean” would become what Quebec (French-speaking province) is to Canada — on steroids.
This is for good reason: Puerto Rico was a colony of Spain’s for more than 400 years. The island “is an older nation than the United States,” Hernández points out. It has “a history spanning over 500 years of Hispanic civilization.” Its character isn’t changing, either.
Neither Fish Nor Fowl
As many know, Puerto Rico has a status shared by only four other lands. It’s an unincorporated U.S. territory whose residents are nonetheless U.S. citizens. They can be drafted into the American military, but cannot vote in presidential elections. They also have no voting members in Congress.
This unusual situation arose because Puerto Rico was a spoil of war. It was ceded to the United States in 1898 after the Spanish-American War. Since then, it has been in limbo, neither a state nor its own country. The island isn’t in largess limbo, however. Why, its residents receive more than $8,500 in per capita U.S. handouts — more than…
I am with you! Why be a vassal province in the Empire when you can be your own State/Nation? If they would just let the rest of us leave the Empire as well!