Puerto Rico: The Last Colony
What is to become of the Philippines and Porto Rico? Are they to become States with representation here from those countries, from that heterogeneous mass of mongrels that make up their citizenship? That is objectionable to the people of this country, as it ought to be, and they will call a halt to it before it is done. Jefferson was the greatest expansionist. But neither his example nor his precedent affords any justification for expansion over territory in distant seas, over peoples incapable of self-government, over religions hostile to Christianity, and over savages addicted to head-hunting and cannibalism, as some of these islanders are.
“Masses of mongrels,” “peoples incapable of self-government,” “savages addicted to head-hunting and cannibalism” — when it came to describing the peoples indigenous to the nations we sought to colonize, William B. Bate, former U.S. Senator for Tennessee and a major general of the Confederacy, did not mince his words.
But it is we who have acted shamefully. The political ideologies and divisions found on the island of Puerto Rico have been wholly determined by the American colonial occupation and domination over its people since 1898.
Prior to the Spanish-American war, Puerto Rico was in the process of transitioning into a sovereign and independent nation for the first time in its history since its "discovery" by the Spanish in 1493. Before the transition into independent self-rule was complete, however, the American Navy bombarded the capital city of San Juan, routing the Spanish leadership from the island, and cementing American dominance over all of Puerto Rico’s affairs to this day.
As outlined in the book "War Against All Puerto Ricans," the American response to the independence movement of the 1950s was one of murdering, torturing, and imprisoning Puerto Rican nationalists who demanded and fought for Puerto Rico's right to self-determination. The leader of the independence movement, Pedro Albizu Campos, was imprisoned, tortured, and subjected to lethal radiation poisoning in his prison cell.
From the 1930s through the 1990s, the FBI kept secret files on over 100,000 Puerto Ricans. These files, known as “carpetas,” looked like this:
The carpetas were given additional teeth by Public Law 53, which became known as La Ley de la Mordaz (the Law of the Muzzle). For 10 years, from 1948 through 1957, Law 53 made it a felony to say a word, sing a song or whistle a tune about independence. If you sang La Borinqueña, or owned a Puerto Rican flag, you could be imprisoned for 10 years.
Many years later, in the year 2000, FBI Director Louis J. Freeh admitted in a U.S. congressional hearing that “the FBI did operate a program that did tremendous destruction to many people, to the country and certainly to the FBI.” Freeh then vowed to “redress some of the egregious illegal action, maybe criminal action that occurred in the past.”
Unfortunately by that time, the damage had become incalculable. It extended beyond any individual or group, and even beyond the issue of independence. The carpetas drove a permanent wound into the national character of Puerto Rico.
Today, many people complain about “government intrusion” into our private lives, as if it were something new. But it is not new. Puerto Ricans suffered all of this, and much worse, for 60 years.
After violently crushing the independence movement, America invented a new term, "estado libre asociado" (freely associated state), in order to justify the continued colonial dominance over Puerto Rico to the United Nations. Cases like Puerto Rico are known as the “Insular Cases.” Territories of the United States that are nevertheless not considered to be “part” of the United States.
The political system of the island since the 1950s has been wholly determined by the question of the legal status of Puerto Rico. The two biggest parties of the island, the PNP and the PPD, share different views of what our relationship to the mainland United States ought to be. One party favors statehood, while the other favors the continued existence of the ethically repugnant colonial status. The independence movement, after being victimized by the continued brutality of American FBI and military agents, is an insignificant political also-ran comparable to the Green Party in the United States.
Puerto Rico’s colonial status means islanders pay every federal tax except for the federal income tax. Those who criticize Puerto Rico as “enjoying the benefits of being American without paying the same taxes as everyone else” completely miss or ignore the basic fact that Puerto Rico does not enjoy any sort of congressional representation. Puerto Ricans who live in the island are also blocked from voting in presidential elections.
The colonial dominance over the island of Puerto Rico has wholly determined the ideological lines by which the island has found itself divided since the forceful conquest of the nation after the war against Spain. Recently, academics from the Puerto Rican diaspora have publicly signed a declaration outlining the colonial history of the caribbean and Puerto Rico that has led to our current situation. The entire document is worth a read:
The Virgin Islands, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Dominica, Barbuda, Antigua, Guadeloupe, St. Kitts, and Puerto Rico are geopolitically precarious: physically as islands and politically for their colonial history and status. They were traditionally called “Overseas Provinces” because of their political and economic dependence on a metropolitan mainland. The world has found out in the past few days what our history has always stubbornly made visible to us. Puerto Rico is a colony of the United States. Its political status stems from the U.S. invasion of 1898 and a series of laws that served only to consolidate U.S. control, hindering the possibility of Puerto Rican sovereignty and political emancipation.
The US citizenship of Puerto Ricans, in this circumstance, is not a privilege, but the branding of a slave. It is a restrictive citizenship subject to the limits imposed by the US Congress without any interpellation of the subject to whom it is imposed. As an American colony, citizenship in this case actually denies Puerto Ricans any of the rights obtained by other regions impacted by the same events in the North American mainland. Citizenship makes us hostages, dispensable entities and victims of calculated charity. It is necessary to repeal the Jones Act, which imposes restrictions on the entry of other vessels to the island, even if their intention is only to offer humanitarian aid. It is necessary to abolish the PROMESA Law, since Puerto Rico cannot be rebuilt on the basis of an unpayable and fraudulent debt. Both laws condemn the country to an unsustainable economic future that will intensify the exodus of Puerto Ricans from their island.
It is morally repugnant and abhorrent for a nation that claims to value freedom and self-determination to deny an island of over 3 million people, with an added 4 million outside of the island that comprise the Puerto Rican diaspora, the right to proper representation in the Senate and House of Representatives.
This is literally the reason why American colonists saw rebellion against Britain as the only recourse to take to ensure future freedom. The animating cry of “no taxation without representation” was met by the British response of “virtual representation,” the idea that any member of Parliament is capable of looking out for the interests of British everywhere, not just for those within their regional space. The colonists did not accept this argument. A Virginian must participate in Parliament if Virginia is to be genuinely represented, they argued. It’s interesting that this early recognition of the surpassing importance of native representation is no longer valued as much. Or maybe it is, but not when it comes to extending that recognition to Puerto Ricans.
We cannot consistently claim to value freedom and liberty while turning a blind eye to the continued colonial dominance over an island whose struggles for independence have been met with brutal military response throughout its history. While the island reels from the catastrophic impact of hurricane Maria, let's not forget the conditions Puerto Ricans have had to endure throughout history, as well as how those conditions have shaped the federal government's response to this tragedy.
