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    After relief debacle, Puerto Rico’s governor looks for political revenge in Florida

    After relief debacle, Puerto Rico’s governor looks for political revenge in Florida

    David Knowles
    ,Yahoo NewsApril 30, 2018

    "The unfinished business of American democracy": Puerto Rico’s governor looks for political revenge in Florida



    Puerto Rico’s Gov. Ricardo Rosselló reached his breaking point three months after Hurricane Maria laid waste to the U.S. territory on Sept. 20, wrecking its power grid, damaging most of its dwellings and triggering a mass exodus of residents to the U.S. mainland.

    Still in his first year in office, Rosselló had already seen his share of daunting challenges by the time Maria made landfall as a Category 4 storm. He inherited a massive debt crisis and, fewer than two weeks earlier, had watched Hurricane Irma knock out power to millions.

    The second storm that month proved even more powerful, and suddenly Rosselló found himself thrust into cringe-worthy photo ops with President Trump, including an Oct. 19 Oval Office meeting during which the president gave his own administration a perfect 10 for its underwhelming relief efforts, then urged the reluctant governor to publicly do the same.


    It wasn’t until Dec. 19, however, that Rosselló fully realized that securing Puerto Rico’s future meant he would have to get involved in mainland politics in a way that no other governor had before him. Though he had spent weeks explaining to members of Congress why stripping tax breaks from manufacturers operating in Puerto Rico would deal the island a “crippling blow,” his pleas ultimately fell on deaf ears as Republicans looked to give Trump his first substantive legislative victory and passed a tax reform bill that did just that.


    President Trump with Gov. Ricardo Rosselló of Puerto Rico at the White House in October 2017. (Photo: Kevin Dietsch— Pool/Getty Images) More

    “At that juncture, it just dawned on me that, even though conceptually, at a high level we knew we had to start some sort of a movement, that unless we started a robust, results-oriented structure, we were always going to be on the short end of the stick,” Rosselló told Yahoo News in a classroom at Ana G. Mendez University in Orlando, Fla.


    Analysts estimate that the loss of business incentives could cost Puerto Rico hundreds of thousands of jobs when it desperately needs to get new tax revenue in order to keep pace with its staggering $123 billion bond and pension obligations.


    “We had congressmen who came to Puerto Rico and pledged their support, and we had the opportunity to explain why it [the tax reform bill] would be devastating. They just couldn’t move the needle, so it was very frustrating,” said Rosselló, who at 39 years old is youthful looking and photogenic, and is the son of former Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Rosselló.


    Rosselló is a former tennis prodigy who studied biomedical engineering and economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before getting a PhD in the former from the University of Michigan. He does not need experts to explain to him that the tax bill provision coupled with the excruciatingly slow progress of restoring power and running water to the island’s 3.4 million residents meant that even more Puerto Ricans would soon be packing their bags and leaving for the mainland. He, therefore, decided to turn the situation into an advantage.


    The governor was in Central Florida last Tuesday to announce the formation of Poder Puerto Rico, a nonpartisan 501(c)4 organization that aims to register displaced Puerto Ricans living in swing states so as to give a political voice to those still “living in a state of powerlessness” on the island. Puerto Rico sends a nonvoting representative to Congress, and its residents do not cast votes in presidential elections.


    “I recognize that the situation of Puerto Rico is hard to explain. I mean, we’re talking about a colonial territory in the 21stcentury, the oldest, most populated colonial territory in the world, and it is under the biggest democracy in the world,” said Rosselló, who is a Democrat.


    Gov. Ricardo Rosselló of Puerto Rico poses for pictures at Ana G. Mendez University in Orlando, Fla., on April 24. (Video still: Robert Thomas/Yahoo News) More

    After arriving on the mainland and establishing residency, Puerto Ricans who register are immediately eligible to vote, so long as they don’t change their address. In Florida, officials estimate that as many as 385,000 islanders could put down roots by the end of the year, a number more than big enough to potentially swing an election in a state where election margins have been razor thin in recent cycles.

    The fight for Florida


    The same day Rosselló unveiled his new political organization in Orlando, Florida Gov. Rick Scott was paying his fifth visit to Puerto Rico since Maria hit the island. When Scott returned to an Orlando agricultural equipment factory for a campaign rally two days later — he is running for the Senate seat now held by Democrat Bill Nelson, in what is likely to be the most expensive Senate race in the nation this year — Yahoo News asked him if he agreed with Trump’s evaluation of his administration’s relief efforts.

    “We had Irma, and a year ago we had Matthew and before that we [Florida] had Hermine. I think my expectation, I think everybody’s expectation, is that they want their power back on immediately,” Scott said, avoiding any mention of the president.


    Nelson, by contrast, routinely blasts Trump, FEMA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Washington speeches and on his own visits to San Juan, Puerto Rico, over what he sees as an incompetent relief effort.


    “Tomorrow marks seven months since Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico, and yet Puerto Ricans are still dealing with constant setbacks and unreliable power,” Nelson said on the Senate floor on April 19.

    “This is just simply unacceptable.”


    Nelson voted against the tax bill and described its passage as a knife “put to the neck of Puerto Rico.” Scott supports it, but with an asterisk, saying he would look to amend the legislation to restore some tax breaks for Puerto Rico if elected to the Senate.


    Florida Gov. Rick Scott holds a U.S. Senate campaign event at Ring Power corporation in Orlando on April 26. (Video still: Robert Thomas/Yahoo News) More

    “I’m for reduced taxes, but you’ve got to be fair.

    So I’m glad that they passed tax reductions in the past year, but you’ve got to treat Puerto Rico fairly,” Scott, wearing a blue-and-gold Navy baseball cap that has become a fixture on the campaign trail, told Yahoo News. “If you stop to think about it, there’s 2.4 million people there and you’ve got to help them get their economy going again.”


    As Scott and Nelson continue to tailor their pitches to a growing population of transplants, a host of other groups is already at work trying to parlay the frustration of displaced Puerto Ricans into midterm votes. UnidosUS, formerly known as the National Council of La Raza, is the nation’s largest Hispanic advocacy group, and has field offices in Central and South Florida that hope to register 50,000 new voters by October to give Democrats an edge.


    “The trend down here over the past 10 years or so is that all of these races are very tight. So you don’t need a large number of people to sway an election,” Jared Nordlund, senior strategist at UnidosUS told Yahoo News over a dinner of roast pork and mofongo, the Puerto Rican delicacy made from fried-then-mashed plantains, at Orlando’s Melao Bakery. “You can swing an election with 20,000 people. It’s going to have an impact.”


    Unlike in past election cycles, Nordlund says, the hurricane will motivate a higher percentage of people to vote in this year’s midterm.


    “The way Puerto Rico was treated, there’s a lot of anger about that,” Nordlund said. “There’s frustration with how aid was rolled out, to not be treated like a citizen.”


    At the Puerto Rican bakeries, cafés and restaurants that dot neighborhoods around Orlando and the southern suburb of Kissimmee, it’s not hard to find those who have an opinion on the Trump administration’s relief efforts.


    Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., listens to displaced Puerto Ricans living in Central Florida at a meeting in Kissimmee, Fla., April 20, 2018, to address concerns that FEMA was planning to stop providing temporary housing assistance to hundreds of families who fled the island after the devastation of Hurricane Maria. (Photo: Joe Burbank/TNS via ZUMA Wire) More

    “We live up in the mountains, so my grandmother was without any water or electricity for like two months. And now again, last week, it went off again,” Jessica Feliciano, a 30-year-old office manager, told Yahoo News outside of Arepera La Nueva, a fluorescent-lit restaurant in a rundown strip mall in eastern Orlando. “I get upset, because it felt like nothing was barely done. All those people and they were just way too long without any help. I think that it woke Puerto Ricans up, and they’re pretty pissed off right now.”


    Joel Figueroa, who works at Orlando’s Valisa Bakery in a more upscale strip mall 2 miles up N. Semoran Blvd. from Arepera La Nueva, echoed a sentiment heard often among the diaspora.


    “I was in Texas when Harvey hit, and so I saw how quick the response to Texas was. And then two weeks later a hurricane hit Florida, and I was already back home, so I saw the response to that. It was really quick, it didn’t take more than a day to get the power back. But then for Puerto Rico, you know, it took months,” Figueroa, 20, said. “There was a lack of response to Puerto Rico and I don’t know if it was because it was an island and it was a little bit further away or that he [Trump] didn’t care because it wasn’t a state.”


    Feliciano and Figueroa are just the kind of voters that UnidosUS and Poder Puerto Rico hope to enlist.


    “I’m getting my family more involved because after the hurricane they saw a lack of interest the U.S. has towards Puerto Ricans, especially in Puerto Rico, who are going through so much,” Figueroa said. “So I think that has inspired them to also get involved.”


    Jessica Feliciano at the Arepera La Nueva restaurant in Orlando, Fla., on April 24 (Video still: Robert Thomas/Yahoo News) More

    Although the failures of the relief effort clearly motivate most Puerto Ricans in Florida, it’s unclear whether Rosselló’s message on the tax bill will have the same resonance.


    “We supported the overall tax reform bill because it pushes what we’ve been talking about for a long time. It spurs the economy. It helps the middle class,” David Velazquez, executive director of the Libre Initiative, a conservative advocacy group, told Yahoo News.

    “But we did not agree with the way that they were speaking about Puerto Rico as a foreign entity.”


    Funded by conservative megadonors Charles and David Koch, the Libre Initiative doesn’t register voters in Florida, but teaches English classes to Puerto Rican arrivals at several locations in the state. In addition to language skills and résumé building workshops, Libre Initiative also imparts a small government, traditional Republican philosophy in its classes and may end up endorsing Scott in Florida’s Senate race.


    “Everybody’s been after the Puerto Rican vote,” said Velazquez, who attended Rosselló’s Tuesday press conference. “Do I think that the governor’s group can have an impact? Sure I do. I think it can have a big impact, as long as folks make it a priority to get out and vote.”


    There are reasons to be skeptical about whether November will see a marked surge in Hispanic turnout. Although upwards of 85 percent of Puerto Ricans on the island vote in territorial elections, that figure drops to around 30 percent in U.S. elections for those who have relocated. So even though it’s clear that Puerto Rican anger at Trump could boost turnout, it remains to be seen how it will impact races like the Senate contest between Scott and Nelson.


    “I think there’s a false sense among people in my party that all these demographic things that play out well for my side organically turn into wins,” Steve Schale, Democratic strategist and the former Florida manager for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, told Yahoo News. “One of the flags that I’ve been raising for six months now is that, whether it’s a huge delta or a smaller delta, there still a gap between the number of people that have come here after Maria that are going to stay and the people that have registered to vote.”


    Joel Figueroa at the Valisa Bakery in Orlando, Fla., on April 24 (Video still: Robert Thomas/Yahoo News) More

    That said, with respect to Florida’s marquee Senate contest, Schale sees the Puerto Rican vote trending heavily toward Nelson.


    “If you’re going to show up to vote because you’re angry at Trump and the way that he handled the island after the hurricane, are you going to send that message by voting for Rick Scott?” Schale asked. “Probably not.”


    Yet Schale stresses that the Puerto Rican vote is only one part of the broader mosaic that either candidate needs to assemble to win in November.


    “Let’s say that you add 50,000 people to the voter rolls and 60 percent of them vote, which would be a higher percentage than normal, and let’s say you win those voters 2 to 1, then you end up netting 10,000 votes out of that,” Schale said. “Now, Rick Scott ended up winning his last election by 60,000 votes, so 10,000 votes is not insignificant, but it’s just one piece of the puzzle. It’s a big chunk in the right direction.”


    ‘Eat the mofongo’


    For more than two decades, activist Natascha Otero-Santiago has watched U.S. politicians clumsily attempt to lure the Puerto Rican vote in the final months of an election, and has coined an expression that sums up her advice on how to succeed.

    “They need to eat the mofongo,” Otero-Santiago told Yahoo News in the sunbaked parking lot at Ana G. Mendez University following Rosselló’s rollout for Poder Puerto Rico. “The work that has to be done with the Puerto Rican community needs to be done not two months before the election. It needs to be networking and education and a way of looking at Puerto Ricans as a part of the community.”


    Otero-Santiago is hopeful that Rosselló’s group will turn out displaced Puerto Ricans to vote in November, but isn’t holding her breath.


    “Post-Hurricane Maria citizens that have arrived in Florida are looking for jobs and are looking for affordable housing and are looking for education for their children. How do you get to these Puerto Ricans?” Otero-Santiago said.

    “It’s also concerning to people like me, who have been for 23 years in Florida, to realize that some of the people who have been here that long are still not even going out to vote.”


    A San Juan resident hugs Gov. Ricardo Rosselló as the National Guard arrives at Barrio Obrero in Santurce to distribute water and food to those affected by Hurricane Maria in September 2017. (Photo: Carlos Giusti/AP) More

    With bondholders demanding to be paid, a new tax law sure to hamper job growth, and an estimated 10 percent to 15 percent of his island’s population likely to move to the mainland this year, Rosselló can’t afford to wait two decades for Puerto Ricans to come around to voting in the U.S.


    “Florida is essentially ground zero,” the governor told Yahoo News. “There are other states that we aim to pinpoint in this midterm elections and other districts as well, but really because of the [thin] margin, because of the large population, because of the attention that has been brought to the races over here, I think that it is a good initial step to showcase what we can do. So, yes, I think we can be influential in Florida and that goes to registering people and then getting them out to vote.”

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/relief-de...090049999.html
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    They put themselves in all that debt. Nobody to BLAME but themselves.

    Now they have a crisis on their hands and no way out.

    Cut them lose, sell the Island and let someone else rebuild it.

    Our money should not pay for this any more. And our money should NOT pay for Flint water crisis. Their government did this, the city leaders did this...not the rest of the country.

    If these leaders run their city and country in the ground and we bail them out...then more will do it!

    Their poor planning and corruption is not our problem to pay for.
    ILLEGAL ALIENS HAVE "BROKEN" OUR IMMIGRATION SYSTEM

    DO NOT REWARD THEM - DEPORT THEM ALL

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    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Beezer View Post
    . . . sell the Island and let someone else rebuild it . . .
    They are already doing that.

    Big Money Is Buying Up Puerto Rico’s Risky Real Estate

    July 14, 2017
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    Moderator Beezer's Avatar
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    Let them buy it up and send the PR's back.
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    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Beezer View Post
    Let them buy it up and send the PR's back.
    Puerto Ricans are Americans and can't be deported.
    They can live in any state they want.
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    Cut Puerto Rico loose!

    Time for our laws to change.

    They are a State or they are not.

    And we need to END dual citizenship.
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    US Department of Defense Recognizes Puerto Rican Military Service

    Posted October 18, 2016

    The Department of Defense recently spotlighted Puerto Rico’s participation in the U.S. Military with an article bringing out the details of the territory’s service since World War I.

    “I’m super-proud of my heritage,” the article quotes retired Marine Corps 1st Sgt. Ildelfonso “Pancho” Colon Jr. as saying. “Like any soldier from Texas who loves his Texas flag and loves his state, Puerto Ricans, we love our flag, we love our state — we call it a state. I’ve wanted to be a soldier all my life. It’s so motivational being around all of these veterans. We’re proud Americans. We love our country, but we love Puerto Rico, too.”


    The men and women of Puerto Rico have served in U.S. wars from the Revolutionary War and the Civil War on. Since becoming U.S. citizens in 1917, Puerto Ricans have served in disproportionate numbers relative to their population within the U.S.


    Even under Spanish rule, Puerto Ricans fought alongside American colonists in the Revolutionary War. The U.S. Department of Defense states that a southern troop — consisting primarily of Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics — captured the cities of Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Mobile, Alabama; Pensacola, Florida; and St. Louis, Missouri, from the British.


    The first U.S. shot of World War I was fired in Puerto Rico by Army Lt. Teofilo Marxuach. He was on duty at the famous El Morro Castle, at the entrance to San Juan Bay, when war was declared. An armed supply ship for German submarines attempted to navigate out of the bay, and Marxuach opened fire from behind the walls of the fortress, forcing the ship to return to port.


    In April, the Congressional Gold Medal was awarded to the U.S. Army’s 65th Infantry Regiment, the Borinqueneers. Upon passage of the legislation, Congressman Bill Posey (R-FL) explained, “The Borinqueneers participated in some of the fiercest battles of Korean War and awarding such a high honor is an appropriate way to show our gratitude to these heroes for their bravery, their service and their sacrifices.

    They are part of a proud tradition of service in the face of adversity that includes the Tuskegee Airmen, Montford Point Marines, Navajo Code Talkers and the Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team – all of whom have already received the Congressional Gold Medal.”


    Pedro Pierluisi, the Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico, also spoke movingly of the need to honor the Borinqueneers:

    Between 1950 and 1953, the 65th Infantry Regiment participated in some of the fiercest battles of the Korean War, and its toughness, courage and loyalty earned the admiration of those who had previously harbored reservations about Puerto Rican soldiers based on stereotypes. In the face of unique challenges, the men of the 65th Infantry Regiment served our nation with great skill and tremendous grace.

    How many Puerto Ricans have served in the U.S. military since 1917?


    • WW I – 18,000
    • WW II – 65,000
    • Korean – 61,000
    • VietNam – 48,000
    • Gulf – 10,000
    • Enduring & Iraqi Freedom – 25,000
    • National Guard in 2014 – 8,400+
    • Veterans in P.R. – 100,000+


    Since the Korean War, 1,131 Puerto Ricans have died in service.

    The names of many of these heroes are inscribed on El Monumento de la Recordacion, the Monument of Remembrance, in San Juan.


    Yet these patriotic citizens cannot vote for their Commander in Chief.


    Puerto Rico is not a State, but a territory of the United States. Americans vote for the president as individuals, but it is the States, in the form of the Electoral College, which actually elect the president. Without statehood, Puerto Rico doesn’t get to participate. People who leave Puerto Rico and live in a State can immediately register to vote, and Puerto Rican voters are expected to be very influential in this year’s presidential campaign, particularly in Florida.

    The residents of Puerto Rico, however, cannot vote.

    https://www.puertoricoreport.com/us-.../#.WuoPRaQvzIU
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    Puerto Rico votes again on statehood but US not ready to put 51st star on the flag

    The US territory is voting once more on whether to become America’s 51st state – but many islanders are questioning the timing of the referendum, and the cost
    by Ed Pilkington in San Juan



    Sat 10 Jun 2017 06.00 EDTLast modified on Fri 14 Jul 2017 13.00 EDT


    The hall is a sea of pink and white. About 350 Puerto Ricans, mostly women, have come to hear their First Lady speak in what they hope will be the final push towards a new relationship between their island and the United States.

    When Beatriz Rosselló, the 32-year-old wife of the governor of Puerto Rico, finally appears at the rally outside the capital San Juan, the room erupts into a frenzy of flag-waving. The American Stars and Stripes with its 50 stars, and the Puerto Rican emblem, with its single one, intertwine amid the flurry, giving the illusion that they have fused: 51 stars in a single banner of red, white and blue.
    Colony, state or independence: Puerto Rico's status anxiety adds to debt crisis

    Which is precisely the message that Beatriz Rosselló wants to transmit when she manages to fight her way through the selfie-taking crowd to the microphone. “Imagine this,” she says in Spanish. “Imagine that everyone agrees that it is time to take down the American flag and raise it up again with one more star for Puerto Rico. Imagine how beautiful that would be.”

    Rosselló and her supporters of the governing Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP) hope to take that spirit of unification to the polling stations on Sunday when Puerto Rico holds its fifth plebiscite on statehood in 50 years. The ambition is to deliver such a resounding cry from the island’s 3.4 million citizens that Washington will be forced to take Puerto Rico on board as the 51st state of the United States.
    It is a forlorn hope, coming at a time of singular anguish for this Caribbean territory that has been an unincorporated US territory since the Spanish-American war of 1898. The island is struggling after a decade-long recessionthat has seen its unemployment rate reach 12.4%, compared with 4.7% in the US as a whole, and its overall debt burden and pensions shortfall rise to more than $120bn.
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    Last month, Beatriz Rosselló’s husband Ricardo hit the nuclear button and took Puerto Rico into a form of bankruptcy – the first time in history that any US state or territory had done so. That followed the imposition last year by the US Congress of a fiscal control board that exerts federal oversight of the island’s finances, imposing excruciating cuts to public services including education, health care and benefits.

    Twenty minutes’ drive away from the pro-statehood rally, the devastation of the past few years is laid bare at the Río Piedras campus of the University of Puerto Rico. The gates of the institution are padlocked and barricaded with old wooden crates and iron bars, and the tree-lined grounds are empty save for some workers clearing up rubbish.

    For the past 71 days students have occupied the campus in protest over cuts, terminating all its classes and turning Rio Piedras into a wasteland. Though the strike ended on Friday, the walls of the academic buildings are still festooned in strikers’ graffiti: “A country unemployed, a people tired – we must demand more,” says one slogan.

    One of the strikers, Juan Collazo, 22, personifies the problems now faced by millions of Puerto Ricans. He decided to join the strike, he said, when cuts were announced that, by some accounts, would slash up to $512m from the university’s $900m annual budget, destroying its historic standing as a place of learning for thousands of poor citizens.

    Collazo calculates that if the cuts go ahead he will find his tuition fees rise from nothing – they are fully covered by federal grants – to $1,600 a year. That’s an amount he says he could no way afford: jobs have all but dried up.


    Hedge funds tell Puerto Rico: lay off teachers and close schools to pay us back


    The fallout of the financial crisis is hurting other members of his family, too. His mother has just lost her job as an elementary teacher; her workplace was one of 184 public schools shuttered in the latest round of school closures.

    Amid such personal hardship, Collazo is left unmoved by Sunday’s referendum on whether or not to become America’s 51st state, in which he has no intention of participating. He calls himself an “independista”, wanting full sovereignty for his country.

    He believes the vote is worse than pointless, it is manipulative: “They are spending $8m holding this vote, and yet will the US Congress take any notice of it? No, they won’t. This is just another attempt to divide and conquer us.” These are some of the disgruntled feelings that the governor, Ricardo Rosselló, is battling against having called the statehood vote. All opposition parties in the country have vowed to boycott the Sunday poll, further threatening its credibility.

    Rosselló dismisses the boycott as a ruse on the part of the opposition to disguise their own political weakness. He says $8m is small change if it addresses the much greater cost of being a colony.

    “The current status is shameful,” he says. “It is shameful to be a colonial territory in the 21st century, and for the United States to own one. The nation that is the standard bearer of freedom and democracy should not be in this position – it’s hard to go to Cuba and Venezuela and voice your support for democracy when you’re not doing it at home.”


    Rosselló said: ‘It is shameful to be a colonial territory in the 21st century, and for the United States to own one.’ Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty ImagesRosselló speaks to the Guardian in the Throne Room, the gilded centerpiece of the 1530s governor’s mansion known as La Fortaleza that was designed to welcome Spanish royalty. (They never showed up). The room stands as the embodiment of 500 years of colonial rule –under Spain and then the US – which make it the oldest colonial territory in the world.


    The governor says that the melding of Spanish and American culture is a strength for Puerto Rico to embrace, not a liability to discard with independence. “Some people will say you need to choose one over the other but I think this is a false narrative. Puerto Rico is the perfect connector of the Americas – the Latin American and the North American.” Even in the age of Trump? The president who has denigrated Mexican “rapists and murderers”, promised to build a wall to keep Latinos out, sneered at Puerto Rico’s desire for a “bailout”? “My view is, I don’t know that he is anti-Latino,” Rosselló says with studious diplomacy. “Obviously I’ve heard some derogatory remarks but I don’t know him personally, and it doesn’t deter me.” But is there any sign that the US Congress is prepared to move an inch towards granting statehood? “If we establish that the people of Puerto Rico want statehood and reject the current colonial status, then the nation that professes democracy is going to need to act,” he says.

    Behind all this frenetic talking and disagreement is a key Puerto Rican paradox: the islanders are united at least by their unanimous obsession with the United States. You can see it in the framing of their major parties, which all define themselves in terms of their desired relationship with the mainland – Rosselló’s PNP in favour of becoming the 51st state, the opposition Partido Popular Democrático (PPD) broadly in favor of the status quo, and a small but influential independence party calling for a clean break.


    Puerto Rico's economic migrants escape to US mainland in search of stability


    You see it with the exodus: more than 400,000 inhabitants have left the troubled island since the last status vote in 2012, overwhelmingly to the US. There are now almost 5.2 million Puerto Ricans living in the US, almost 2 million more than at home, making them an increasingly powerful voice in electorally sensitive states such as Florida.

    Domestically, you see the paradox played out on the streets of San Juan, a Spanish-speaking Latin American city with US chain stores on every block. You see it too in the high prices of food and other daily products, with more than 80% of the island’s food imported, largely from the US and all of it, by law, under the flag of the (very expensive) US merchant navy.

    Above all, you see Puerto Rico’s fraught connection to the US in the strange legal context that was bestowed on its people under the terms of the 1917 Jones Act that granted them US citizenship but not the federal vote. From that legislation a host of contradictions and insults have flowed.

    The most glaring of those is that Puerto Ricans living on the island cannot vote for US president, though if they move to one of the 50 states, they can.

    In short: Puerto Rico remains the awkward embarrassment of the US. America, a nation founded on the rejection of the imperial yoke continues to hold on to its own colonial outpost, 119 years after the fact.

    “The issue of eradicating colonialism is extremely important, not only for us as a country that’s going through very hard times, but for the US which has been a beacon of freedom around the world, or at least has portrayed itself as that,” says the mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulín Cruz. A member of the opposition PPD, she wants to see the island acquire full sovereign powers while retaining close links to the US – a sort of middle ground between statehood and independence.

    She thinks becoming the 51st state would only lock in Puerto Rico’s dependence on its powerful overlord, which is why she’s boycotting Sunday’s vote. “You don’t fight injustice by asking to become part of the system that committed the injustice against you in the first place. That’s like a freed slave striving to become a slave owner.”


    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/10/puerto-rico-vote-statehood-us-economy

    "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" ** Edmund Burke**

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