A Case Against Statehood for PR

I came across this article at the beginning of the month. "Deceitful Tactics Used to Make Puerto Rico A state", written by Phyllis Schlafly (yeah, from the beer family). I was disgusted to read it. An educated woman, a so called feminist.... Yet fails to make an article that can be backed up with facts, has no argument or evidence. I'm embarassed for her.

First, Puerto Ricans do speak English. Since 1993, English has been declared as an official language in the island. By law, English is taught in every school, public and private. Besides, the US Government may not want to accept it, but the reality is that the United States is already not only a bilingual nation, but a nation that speaks almost every language in the world. This is the land of the free, and the United States would not be what it is today without the first immigrants that arrived to Massachusetts (a state, like 3 others, that is designated as a 'commonwealth' the same political status of PR, yet they get to vote - in 2006 the Supreme Court turned down an attempt by a Puerto Rican lawyer to gain presidential electors for the island). If this nation does not change is policy of language, the dollar will not be the only thing falling behind Europe.

True, the Puerto Rican socialist groups have committed several acts of domestic terrorism, but so-called American patriots have committed similar acts, like the Oklahoma city bombing, for example. However, you failed to mention how Puerto Rican troops fight with the United States. Recently, more than 70 Puerto Ricans have died serving in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. Infrastructure and environment is not far below American Standards. In fact, the island is home to the nation's only National Rain Forest Reserve and we abide by federal guidelines of construction and environmental policies.

In addition, throughout the years, PR has had both republican and democratic representation in congress. The current Resident Commissioner in Washington, DC, Luis Fortuño is Republican.

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Monica Vega Hernandez... her response to this entry:

I agree and disagree in several points.

1. About Puerto Ricans speaking English or not.

You are right in saying that English has been declared as an official language in the island and that by law, English is taught in every school, public and private. This fact does not imply that all Puerto Ricans know English. The reality in Puerto Rico is that a high percent of the population don’t know English fluently because most of the population is educated by the public system which has very poor English teaching techniques, specially lacking in conversational skills. Another fact is that Puerto Ricans by nature prefer to speak Spanish, although most of the population agrees that learning English is to their best interest.

Something else to point out is that people usually learn things for necessity. I the case of the metropolitan area, people need to learn English because the metropolitan area is the center of business making and tourism. In other parts of the island English is not necessary therefore the input people put on learning is much less.

In summary I agree with both of you partially, although I will put it in this way:

“Puerto Ricans are exposed to English by law from early stage in both, public and private schools. Nonetheless only a percent of the Puerto Rican population does learn English and another percent don’t”.

2. A comment about the paradox of having American citizenship and not being able to vote for the president of the USA.

It seems logical that because we are, by law, American citizens we should vote for the American president. Why then we can vote for the president only if we live in the USA? This means that Puerto Ricans have a degraded citizenship. Our citizenship does not grant us with the same rights a citizenship grants the mainland-born Americans. The reason for this “degraded citizenship” responds to the interests of the USA in a specific historic time.

When Puerto Rico became a colony of the USA thru the Hispanic-American war most of the Puerto Ricans wanted the independence from Spain. This means that at that point in history and 40 years down the road the majority of the Puerto Ricans wanted to become a Republic and though that the American invasion was something transitional.

Soon after the Hispanic American War Puerto Rico became the main place for guarding American military installations in the Caribbean. Puerto Rican independence at that point in history would have been detrimental for the USA military, therefore an intelligent way to assure dominance over Puerto Rico was to grant Puerto Rico with the American citizenship. They first inquired Puerto Ricans if they wanted the American citizenship, Puerto Ricans said NO to the citizenship, a fact that not many know about the history of Puerto Rico.

Later the Jones-Shafroth Act was imposed (1917) and we were granted the so call “citizenship” with out another consultation. In summary the American government does not care for the Puerto Ricans vote because we are not really view as real citizens we are just an “interest” at that point in history. Fair or not.


3.USA becoming a bilingual nation issue.

It seems to me taken out of proportions Schlafly’s worries for becoming a bilingual nation. I really see very far from ever to happen that including PR as a state will displace English from the position it poses now. Or that even having another official language will detriment the nation. Many other countries have multiple languages or dialects and they still successful and economically stable, for example Spain. Besides, English is the language of science, hence, any one from any country that wants to do science has to speak English. Similarly this happens in other disciplines. This means that English is one of the languages with more international growth in addition to be spoken by a more multicultural society. To my surprise Schafly, an educated woman, states that learning many languages would not be good,which has been proven to be stimulating to the brain and a common capacity among highly intelligent people.


4.Why are we not a state or an independent country already?

I do believe Schlafly is correct in stating that many of the conservative representation in the government does not approves of Puerto Rico becoming a state for the reasons mentioned. This is a true trend among conservatives whether is fair or not.

5.The overall tone of the article is flaw

I agree with Isabel in that I don’t like the article, but the main reason I don’t like the article is the tone Schlafly uses. She seems to be lacking knowledge of the nature of the Puerto Rican culture, history and politics, for example, when she generalizes about the Puerto Rican independence faction whom not only include the leftist portion but also people like me that believe in democracy.

The tone that she placed in the article seems to imply that Puerto Ricans are lazy, for example when she mentions that Puerto Ricans are not open to learn other languages and our general infrastructure is below standards. This type of generalization makes the article too subjective and ethnically racist.