Will the Last One to Leave Please Turn Off The Lights? : An Insight Into a Forgotten Statehood
By Alexander Gonzalez Tores / High School Democrats of America Puerto Rico
One thousand and fourteen miles off the coast of Miami lies the smallest of the Greater Antilles. Its people are proud of their colorful heritage, unique way of speaking the Spanish tongue, and the beauty of their island. In Puerto Rico any reason is good to celebrate, strangers are long-lost friends, and there will always be a seat at the dinner table for those who don’t have one of their own. We are many things. We are loud, amicable, welcoming, and full of cheer and song.
Most of all, Juan Antonio Corretjer’s verses are woven deep into our collective soul; “… they say the Moon is one, be it from the sea or the mountains, and for that I shout to the villains, I would still be borincano even if I had been born on the Moon”. This feeling among Puerto Ricans is latent and hard to erase, almost as hard to erase as the fact that we are, it seems, irremediably second-class American citizens.
The disparity between the experience of the citizens living in the 50 states and those living on the archipelago cannot be more apparent; even more so, when exercising our right to vote. Puerto Rican soldiers have served in the armed forces with other Americans since World War I. They have bled and payed the ultimate price, yet they do not have a voice in the election of their Commander-in-Chief. Regarding Congress, we only elect a nonvoting delegate as our representation in Congress. We get affected, to the same extent, by the policies coming out of Washington, but we have no way to influence the discourse so it may adapt to our necessities. Truly, this is an aggressive violation of the constitutional rights of 3.8 million American citizens living in Puerto Rico.
In addition to this atrocity, the federal funding of social programs in Puerto Rico is bare-bones when compared to the 50 states. Most recently, for example, we were hit by a true healthcare crisis. 80% of our seniors are subscribed to a Medicare Advantage plan, yet the Republican Congress voted to slash funds for this program by 11% specifically in Puerto Rico. When nearly 45% of the population is living in poverty, cutting social welfare programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is not only cruel but amoral. These particular cuts to the Medicare Advantage subsidizing are expected to lead to higher co-pays for medication and hospitalization and to the suspension of some medical services across the archipelago, according to the Puerto Rico Healthcare Crisis Coalition.
It is necessary to note that part of our economic “death spiral”, as described by Governor Garcia Padilla, is due to this imbalance in federal funding. According to The New York Times, the Government of Puerto Rico has been obligated to emit debt that accumulated to a total of $25 billion just to keep Medicaid afloat. Adding this sum to the rest of the unsustainable debt emitted by our Government — just to barely function — and our national debt amounts to an unpayable $73 billion dollars.
Decades of bad administration are also culprit, but the people of Puerto Rico do not deserve to be punished for the wrongdoings of our leaders. The economy is stagnant, the Government’s finances are in shambles, and the unemployment rate to only go up while salaries go down. The current administration has chosen, regrettably, a path of austerity to try to pull Puerto Rico out of the ditch. Having a lack of options led to this decision.
The 50 states have access to Chapter 9 bankruptcy. This mechanism allows municipalities, counties, townships, etc. to declare bankruptcy so they may restructure their debt with bondholders. This provides a relief for the central government and gives peace of mind to everyday people, who always have to foot the bill for the consequences of incompetent administration. We do not have access to this financial instrument, so we are forced to default on payments of our debt and walk forcefully down the path of austerity institutions like Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are leading us towards.
Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA), and Sen. Chuck Schumer (NY) are doing their part to give Puerto Rico a chance to succeed. Their bills seeking to grant us Chapter 9 protection and ending the disparity in Medicare and Medicaid funds are imperative, but in a GOP Congress, they do not have a chance of succeeding. The future, for now, seems bleak.
All of these symptoms of our colonial status have made Puerto Rico infertile ground for those seeking to harvest a better tomorrow. A second healthcare crisis is brewing, with approximately 700 healthcare professionals abandoning a broken system for one of the 50 states every year. Behind them, young Puerto Ricans are leaving at a rate of approximately 36,000 a year. According to Vice News, when those leaving were asked about their motives, the most common answer was: “Why would I stay?” Why would they? When full constitutional rights, a sound and growing economy, and a better job market are a plane ride away, there is no reason to stay in the “island of lost dreams” as the British newspaper The Independent denominated Puerto Rico.
While the modern diaspora drains Puerto Rico of its best and brightest, the spirit of those who stay grows more dim by the day. It is popular thought to believe Washington has forgotten of the millions of American citizens living in the archipelago. Expecting to hit rock bottom in our “spiral of death”, Corretjer’s innocent patriotic verses slowly get substituted by shared cynicism. A phrase not seen in use since the last mass exodus of Puerto Ricans for the mainland now unpleasantly decorates every day conversation. “Will the last one to leave please turn off the lights?”
