University at Albany, State University of New York Scholars Archive
Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies Faculty Scholarship Studies
5-11-2021
Will the United States finally decolonize Puerto Rico?
Pedro Caban University at Albany, State University of New York, [email protected]
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/lacs_fac_scholar
Part of the American Politics Commons, and the Politics and Social Change Commons
Recommended Citation Caban, Pedro, "Will the United States finally decolonize Puerto Rico?" (2021). Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies Faculty Scholarship. 45. https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/lacs_fac_scholar/45
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies at Scholars Archive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Scholars Archive. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 6/18/2021 Will the United States finally decolonize Puerto Rico? | MR Online
Navigation
Will the United States fnally decolonize Puerto Rico?
Posted May 11, 2021 by Pedro Caban Democracy , Empire , Imperialism , Movements , State Repression , Strategy Puerto Rico , United States Commentary Commonwealth , decolonization , Featured , H.R. 2070 , H.R.1522 , House Committee on Natural Resources , self determination , statehood
On April 14, 2021 the House Committee on Natural Resources held hearings on two competing bills to end Puerto Rico’s colonial status. The diferent bills refect the changing political dynamics in the archipelago, as well as the Puerto Rican diaspora’s growing political clout. H.R.1522, the Puerto Rican State Admission Act, binds Congress to admit Puerto Rico into the Union if a majority vote in favor of doing so in a special referendum. H.R. 2070, the Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act, authorizes the insular legislature to convene a semi-permanent status convention where elected delegates decide on https://mronline.org/2021/05/11/will-the-united-states-finally-decolonize-puerto-rico/ 1/11 6/18/2021 Will the United States finally decolonize Puerto Rico? | MR Online alternative self-determination options that are “outside the territorial clause of the constitution.” The bill creates a bilateral negotiating commission of U.S. government ofcials and the convention delegates. In a referendum, voters will select a territorial option, which may include statehood, independence and sovereign free association. The bill requires that Congress “approve a joint resolution to ratify the preferred self- determination option” approved in a referendum. Commonwealth (or Estado Libre Asociado–ELA in Spanish) is not included as an option in this status bill.
These bills were introduced as Puerto Rico copes with a vexing political and economic landscape in the aftermath of natural disasters, economic collapse, persistent public protests, a crisis of governability and a pandemic. Puerto Rico is at a crossroads. The political class is beleaguered, and lacks the skills and legitimacy to manage the colony. A fnancial control board imposed by the federal government and unaccountable to the people rides roughshod over the economy. The Statehood Admission Act is not a solution to the crisis since it wants to perpetuate the rule of those who are responsible for the crisis in the frst place. In contrast, the Self Determination Act creates the possibility for a new political leadership to oversee Puerto Rico’s decolonization.
H.R. 2070 has generated a lot of political attention, grass roots activity and media coverage. This is the frst time since 2009 that a self-determination bill has been introduced in both houses of congress. H.R. 1522, on the other hand, has received little attention. It is merely the latest in a stream of statehood bills. This statehood bill, as the others before it, will languish in committee. The Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP) and its stateside supporters have introduced six “Puerto Rico Statehood Admissions Acts since the 114th Congress in 2015-2016. None of them has made it out of the Senate committee of jurisdiction. The PPN is urgently pushing for statehood, but it can’t convince Congress that Puerto Ricans are clamoring for it. Even before H.R. 1522 was introduced, prominent senators on both sides of the aisle announced that Puerto Rico’s admission into the Union was doubtful at best. In January 2021 Senator Cory Booker said there were not enough votes in the Senate to support statehood. Republican Senator Rick Scott agreed the Senate would not admit Puerto Rico into the Union. Senator Charles Schumer said that he “is not going to support the statehood bill,” noting that the referendums “did not refect the strong consensus required to advance” a statehood bill. Although the statehood bill is dead on arrival, Governor Pedro Pierluisi is determined to pursue this lost cause.
In 2020 the PNP held a status referendum in an efort to drum up support for the statehood party candidates. Voters were asked “Should Puerto Rico be admitted immediately into the Union as a State?” Fifty two percent of the voters answered yes. PNP declared this a signifcant victory and called on Congress to accept the referendum results. A Columbia University law professor called the results historic, and claimed that with this vote the “people stake their claim to statehood.” But since only 53% of the electorate https://mronline.org/2021/05/11/will-the-united-states-finally-decolonize-puerto-rico/ 2/11 6/18/2021 Will the United States finally decolonize Puerto Rico? | MR Online voted, and of those 38,000 cast blank ballots, some argue that only 26% supported statehood.” The PNP has regularly been criticized for designing referendum ballots that are intentionally confusing in order to steer voters to the statehood option. Governor Garcia Padilla, of the pro-Commonwealth Partido Popular Democrático (PPD), told a Senate Committee in 2013 that the purported growth in statehood support was due to changes in the electoral law ordered by the PNP-controlled electoral commission. “There has not been a surge in statehood support, just a change in how votes are counted or should I say excluded.” Senator Richard Wicker said that statehood had “not changed signifcantly over the last 20 years,” and there is no “impetus for Congress to entertain yet another” bill to admit Puerto Rico into the Union.
Since 2004 electoral participation has declined rapidly from 82% in 2004 to 53% in 2020. Governors are being elected with ever smaller pluralities. Pedro Pierluisi, the unpopular and polarizing statehood gubernatorial candidate, claimed victory in the 2020 elections with only 33% of the votes cast. A well-known sociologist calculated that electoral support for the PNP has been declining steadily. In the 2012 elections the PNP got 834,191 votes, but in 2020 the number dropped to 623, 053. The PNP is barely hanging onto to power. After the ouster of Governor Rosselló in 2019 and the ill-fated administration of his successor, Wanda Vásquez, the PNP’s credibility is in shreds. One prominent journalist and commentary is convinced that the state in Puerto Rico has failed.
The PPD the architect of now discredited ELA is struggling for political survival as well. In the 2012 status referendum 54% of the voters said no to the statement “Puerto Rico should continue to have its present form of territorial status.” When Puerto Ricans voted against ELA, they voted to end colonialism. After the vote the PPD seems to have lost its way. For decades the PPD pushed to “enhance” the Commonwealth by getting Congress to grant it autonomy over key policy areas. But Congress rejected the proposals as “constitutionally impermissible.” After the 2012 referendum Senator Ron Wyden, Chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, said that “the new commonwealth option continues to be advocated as a viable option by some. It is not.” He noted that “the current relationship undermines our country’s moral standing in the world.” Nonetheless, PPD president and senator José Luis Dalmau warned Congress that excluding ELA as a territorial option in the Self Determination Act of 2021 would be “invalid.” It seems that neither the PNP nor the PPD are willing to accept that Congress has decided to permanently reject their territorial ambitions.
Puerto Rico has struggled through fve turbulent and traumatic years. By 2015, after being mired in an economic recession for a decade, Puerto Rico had amassed an insurmountable debt. President Obama responded to the fscal crisis by rescinding Puerto Rico’s fscal autonomy. He imposed a Financial Oversight Management Board (FOMB) that usurped the legislature’s control of the budget. The FOMB imposed a neoliberal regime with https://mronline.org/2021/05/11/will-the-united-states-finally-decolonize-puerto-rico/ 3/11 6/18/2021 Will the United States finally decolonize Puerto Rico? | MR Online catastrophic consequences for the population. In 2017 Hurricanes Irma and María laid waste to Puerto Rico and a swarm of earthquakes in 2019 further devastated the archipelago, forcing a record number of Puerto Ricans to migrate to the United States. Government ineptitude in responding to the emergency magnifed the catastrophic efects of the natural disasters which left over 4000 dead. The pandemic hit Puerto Rico as it was digging itself out of the earthquake’s rubble. By mid-April 2021 over 2,200 had died from the coronavirus.
In summer 2019 hundreds of thousands of indignant Puerto Ricans fnally had had enough. After two weeks of protests, they forced the resignation of Governor Rosselló, a reviled fgure widely blamed for Puerto Rico’s interminable crises. The extraordinary protests set the stage for an unexpected political party realignment the following year. In the 2020 elections the still aggrieved population voted in record numbers for political parties that support independence and self-determination. The venerable Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), and upstart Movimiento Victoria Ciudadana (MVC), obtained 28 percent of the gubernatorial vote, and their candidates were elected to the legislature. Their victory was a stunning rejection of the political class. Both the MVC and PIP testifed in support of H.R. 2070, and are actively advancing a progressive agenda in the legislature.
Puerto Ricans are tired of politics as usual. Protests are now a way of life, and Puerto Ricans openly challenge the authority of an ailing colonial state whose legitimacy is in shreds. The young reject the PNP and PPD which are both obsessed with territorial status. They are resisting sweeping austerity measures and resolutely face the ensuing police brutality. Women feminists were a vital force in the summer 2019 uprising and established la Colectiva Feminista en Construcción. In the early days of May 2021 la Colectiva held fervent and boisterous demonstrations to protest the government’s failure to contain the plague of femicides. Hundreds of others are protesting the government’s continued failure respond to the transportation and health crisis that victimize the residents of Vieques. Labor unions are challenging Governor Pierluisi’s decision to sell the public electric utility to the LUMA corporation. Puerto Ricans in all walks of life have turned to a new politics of solidarity, resilience and resistance. They have broken with a culture of dependency on the government, or “assistenlialism.”
Puerto Ricans have built a multitude of mutual aid associations that provide vital services the government has essentially forsaken. An array of other issue-specifc organizations are challenging destructive environmental policies, are fghting gentrifcation driven by Americans attracted by generous tax incentives. Other organizations are fghting privatization of the publicly owned assets and resources, and others are working toward energy and food self-sufciency. Indeed, one of the most remarkable developments of the last few years has been the politicization of the population and the emergence of a political consciousness that demands government accountability. One well known activist https://mronline.org/2021/05/11/will-the-united-states-finally-decolonize-puerto-rico/ 4/11 6/18/2021 Will the United States finally decolonize Puerto Rico? | MR Online described the emergence of “an unforeseen duality between the self-management movement and the protests that were organized to defend the people” (author’s translation). The colonial state is foundering in this hyper-politicized environment.
Many, if not most, of the 5.8 million Puerto Ricans who reside in the United States consider themselves members of the Puerto Rican nation. The Puerto Rican diaspora is actively promoting the Self Determination Act, while combating the PNP’s statehood campaign. H.R. 2070 has captured the attention of virtually all Puerto Rican diaspora organizations. Ninety organizations wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer urging them “to support and prioritize the passage of the Puerto Rico Self- Determination Act.” Boricuas Unidos en la Diaspora Puerto Rico (BUDPR), Diaspora en Resistencia, Power4PuertoRico and Our Revolution Puerto Rico have scores of thousands of followers on their social media platforms. These organizations joined forces with Vamos a Puerto Rico, a prominent Puerto Rican based social justice grass roots organization, to lobby for H.R. 2070. Diaspora organizations placed ads in the New York Times, convened webinars on decolonization and self-determination, organized zoom panels with representatives from the PIP and MVC, have held rallies, lobbied congress, and set up a tweeter account to contact key legislators. On April 20 diaspora organizations held a public hearing on H.R. 2070 and sent send the proceedings to the Committee on Natural Resources.
Progressive organizations including LatinoJustice, the Center for Popular Democracy, Democratic Socialists of America, and Open Society Policy Center support H.R. 2070. The Center for American Progress applauded the bill, noting that the “landmark legislation would facilitate, not impose, a status resolution mechanism to resolve 123 years of colonialism on the island.” Pierluisi and the PNP were caught of guard by the scope of activism for H.R. 2070.
The political realignment that is taking place in Puerto Rico creates a propitious moment for the self-determination act to become law. The federal government knows that the once reliable political class can no longer manage the colony. If H.R. 2070 becomes law, years may pass before Congress and the convention delegates agree on self-determination options. In the interim the anti-colonial forces can consolidate and expand their political base. With the Commonwealth excluded as a territorial option, and the PNP unable to generate support in Congress, independence or a sovereign free-associated state emerge as real possibilities for the world’s oldest colony.
About Pedro Caban https://mronline.org/2021/05/11/will-the-united-states-finally-decolonize-puerto-rico/ 5/11 6/18/2021 Will the United States finally decolonize Puerto Rico? | MR Online
Pedro Cabán is Professor of Latin American, Caribbean and U.S. Latino Studies at the University at Albany. He is the author of Constructing a Colonial People: Puerto Rico and the United States: 1898-1932.
Connect Subscribe to the Monthly Review e-newsletter (max of 1-3 per month).
E-mail SUBMIT
Related Posts: Small State but big questions The Modern Tecumseh and the Future of the U.S. Left Dossier no. 41: The farmers’ revolt in India Lefebvre and Althusser: Reinterpreting Marxist Humanism and Anti-Humanism Decolonization and communism
Commonwealth, decolonization, Featured, H.R. 2070, H.R.1522, House Committee on Natural Resources, self determination, statehood
The Tech-VC Bloc is key to understanding why work is getting worse An unsustainable burden of debt aficts the peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa. Part 5
Comments are closed.
New! Subscribe for Daily Updates
Email *
https://mronline.org/2021/05/11/will-the-united-states-finally-decolonize-puerto-rico/ 6/11 6/18/2021 Will the United States finally decolonize Puerto Rico? | MR Online
SUBSCRIBE
Monthly Review Essays
The Modern Tecumseh and the Future of the U.S. Left Bill Fletcher, Jr. Tecumseh was killed at the Battle of the Thames in 1813. His dream of an Indigenous confederacy largely died with him. Yet his appreciation of the moment and the possibilities for transformation lived on and should give us all pause.
Load More (1/33)
Daraja Press
The Revolutionary Meaning of the George Floyd Uprising Shemon Salam At least 28 people died in the wave of social unrest that rocked the United States from late May until late July in 2020. In this 10-week period, there were 574 riots; 624 arsons; 2,382 incidents of looting; 97 police vehicles set on fre; and 16,241 people arrested for protest-related activities.
Load More (1/3)
Lost & Found
Renewing Socialism Leo Panitch
If “the revolutionary spirit of the last centuries, that is, the eagerness to liberate and to build a new house where https://mronline.org/2021/05/11/will-the-united-states-finally-decolonize-puerto-rico/ 7/11 6/18/2021 Will the United States finally decolonize Puerto Rico? | MR Online freedom can dwell, [which] is unprecedented and unequaled in all prior history” properly begins with the bourgeois revolutions of the late eighteenth century, few would dispute that this eagerness for fundamental social transformation was […]
Load More (1/5)
Recent: Newswire
America’s soup-brained president says the U.S. never interferes in…
From G7 to NATO The Techfare state: Walter Rodney’s meetings, The ‘new’ face of death records to imperialist power… neoliberal state… be amended and…
See all (Newswire)
Trending
Lefebvre and Althusser: Reinterpreting Marxist Humanism and Anti-Humanism posted 5 days ago
The weapon of criticism cannot replace the criticism of the weapon: What knowledge do we need for revolution against capitalism posted 6 days ago
The Modern Tecumseh and the Future of the U.S. Left posted 1 day ago
Infamous Israeli home thief is federally charged Long Island, NY fnancial fraudster posted 4 days ago
https://mronline.org/2021/05/11/will-the-united-states-finally-decolonize-puerto-rico/ 8/11 6/18/2021 Will the United States finally decolonize Puerto Rico? | MR Online Know your enemy: How to defeat capitalism posted 2 days ago
The coup that is taking place in Peru posted 2 days ago
Pedro Castillo wins presidential elections in Peru, Keiko Fujimori rejects the results posted 4 days ago
‘Forget the Alamo’ unravels a Texas history made of myths, or rather, lies posted 3 days ago
Popular (last 30 days)
All the questions socialists have about China but were too afraid to ask posted on May 27, 2021
Lefebvre and Althusser: Reinterpreting Marxist Humanism and Anti-Humanism posted on June 13, 2021
From post-Marxism back to Marxism? posted on June 8, 2021
U.S.-funded Belarusian regime-change activist arrested on plane joined neo-Nazis in Ukraine posted on May 27, 2021
Briefng to the 8782nd session of the Security Council, May 27, 2021 posted on May 31, 2021
https://mronline.org/2021/05/11/will-the-united-states-finally-decolonize-puerto-rico/ 9/11 6/18/2021 Will the United States finally decolonize Puerto Rico? | MR Online
MR Press News
REGISTER: June 18th, your frst chance to hear Justin Emersberger and Justin Podur live, coauthors of forthcoming book “Extraordinary Threat” June 17, 2021
FORTHCOMING! “Extraordinary Threat: Twenty Years of Coup Attempts in Venezuela” (Three reviews in one from the Orinoco Tribune) June 17, 2021 U.S. out of Africa (Africa Watch Bulletin interviews Gerald Horne) June 14, 2021 REGISTER: June 24th, John Bellamy Foster and Prabhat Patnaik to speak on New School panel, on “the Commons” June 14, 2021 A planned failure (Capital and Class reviews “Dead Epidemiologists”) June 14, 2021
Climate & Capitalism
The Double Deformation June 17, 2021 ‘Net zero’ emissions is a dangerous hoax June 10, 2021
Ecosocialist Alliance Statement on G7 Meeting June 7, 2021 Abolish vaccine patents now! June 3, 2021 Over a third of heat-related deaths caused by global warming June 1, 2021
Monthly Review
June 2021 (Volume 73, Number 2) June 1, 2021 The Editors Capital and the Ecology of Disease June 1, 2021 John Bellamy Foster What Is Happening in the United States? June 1, 2021 Vicente Navarro
The Guaidó Era June 1, 2021 Joe Emersberger Epidemic Response June 1, 2021 Jennifer Dohrn
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Monthly Review Foundation 134 W 29TH ST STE 706 https://mronline.org/2021/05/11/will-the-united-states-finally-decolonize-puerto-rico/ 10/11 6/18/2021 Will the United States finally decolonize Puerto Rico? | MR Online New York NY 10001-5304 Tel: 212-691-2555
https://mronline.org/2021/05/11/will-the-united-states-finally-decolonize-puerto-rico/ 11/11