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Statehood will not decolonize Puerto Rico

-- By ValeriaFlores - 22 Feb 2021

Introduction

In 1898, the United States colonized Puerto Rico and kept it under military rule until 1900, when the Foraker Act established the Island’s civil government. A governor was to be appointed by the U.S. President and Puerto Rico would be represented in the Mainland by a Resident Commissioner with no vote in Congress. In 1917, the Jones Act granted Puerto Ricans U.S. citizenship with the caveat that they could not vote for the U.S. President and remained unrepresented in Congress. In 1952, with Congress’s ratification of Puerto Rico’s Constitution, the Island became a “Commonwealth” subject to the applicable provisions of the U.S. Constitution, the term “applicable” left undefined. In 2021, 104 years after the passage of the Jones Act, nothing has changed. In the face of what seems like a mere legal and political landscape that furthered Puerto Rico’s social, economic and political inequity, many think of statehood as the great equalizer. Statehood, however, will not decolonize Puerto Rico.

Colonization is not merely about legal or political power

In 1901, the Supreme Court held that Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory inhabited by an alien race that belongs to but is not a part of the United States. Ideally, then, the path to decolonization is to become a part of the U.S. and enjoy all of the rights under its Constitution. But because this is not an ideal world, it is hard to believe that Puerto Rico could ever truly be a part of the country that seized it amidst a war and has kept it a colony ever since. For Puerto Ricans like me, voting for the U.S. President and electing representatives in Congress does not change anything, and the colonization of our Island will not be fixed with the grant of more legal or political power. The colonization of Puerto Rico is about the United States’ racism towards Puerto Ricans. Becoming a U.S. state will not change that.

Colonization is about racism, bigotry and prejudice

The history I learned in high school is very different from what I saw online about our relationship with the U.S. My high school was very liberal, and most of my professors favored Puerto Rico’s independence, which is not something you see very often. While other schools taught our relationship with the U.S. from a legal perspective, students in my school learned about how that colonial relationship was built not simply upon legal or political means, but upon racism, bigotry and prejudice towards Puerto Ricans.

The United States' exploitive relationship with Puerto Rico

We learned that according to the United States secretary of war, Puerto Rico was to remain a colony because its Caribbean people did not know “the lesson of self-control and respect for the principles of the constitutional government.” The secretary of state added that Puerto Ricans knew nothing of the “art of self-government or any real honest government.” We learned that the lesson of self-control was taught primarily by assimilation. Soon after the invasion, the U.S. started its mission to civilize Puerto Ricans.

We learned about how the U.S. has used Puerto Rico as a research laboratory for decades. Agent Orange, the herbicide used by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War, was tested in Puerto Rico in 1964. It was tested in the Luquillo Experimental Forest, a beautiful Puerto Rican forest the USDA Crops Research determined was similar to the ones in Asia. The military hoped Agent Orange would defoliate the forest, and that’s exactly what it did. Almost 60 years later, Agent Orange is now associated with seven types of cancer, and the people of Puerto Rico suffer the consequences.

We learned about the effects of colonization in our women. The U.S. sought to control the population growth in “developing countries,” and it came to Puerto Rico. Around 1930, U.S. doctors and surgeons took advantage of poor, uneducated Puerto Rican women and promoted sterilizations as the only effective contraceptive method. Some women did not even know the procedure they were consenting to, and forced sterilizations in the Island rose. By 1948, 7% of Puerto Rican women were sterilized. Around 1906, the first contraceptive pill was tested in the Island with women who were not even informed they were participating in a clinical trial or the possible side effects of the pill. The practice was the same, this time through pills rather than operations.

What struck me the most was when we learned about Cornelius Rhoads. A pathologist in the Rockefeller Institute, Rhoads came to Puerto Rico to do cancer research. Instead, he wrote a letter to his peers in which he depicted his actual work in the Island: "Porto Ricans are beyond doubt the dirtiest, laziest, most degenerate and thievish race of men ever inhabiting this sphere. What the island needs is not public health work but a tidal wave or something to totally exterminate the population. I have done my best to further the process of extermination by killing of 8.”

Conclusion

If this exploitive relationship were an issue of the past, then maybe statehood would decolonize Puerto Rico. All the Island would need is a grant of constitutional rights. That is not the case. As recent as four years ago, immediately after hurricane María struck the Island, U.S. President Trump blithely threw toilet paper at Puerto Ricans who had lost their homes and loved ones before saying Puerto Ricans want “everything done for them.” Puerto Rico becoming a U.S. state will not decolonize it, it will only reaffirm this exploitive, racist relationship and finally complete the process of assimilation the U.S. has instilled in Puerto Ricans for over a century. It will not magically end the years of racism, bigotry and prejudice. Instead, they will go on. As long as Puerto Rico remains tied to the U.S., it will remain colonized.

Until the last sentence, this draft had not addressed the most significant inquiry likely to be on the reader's mind: granting that statehood cannot accomplish decolonization, does that imply (1) that statehood is not a step in the direction of decolonization and (2) that statehood would not significantly improve the economic situation and other measurements of human welfare for Puerto Rican people?

This is addressed at last, in the conclusion and in conclusory form by the final sentence. I think the best route to improvement is to incorporate this necessary part of the discussion into the draft from the top, in order to give the reader confidence that you intend to show not only that statehood is insufficient but that for articulated reasons it does not contribute to and retards the achievement of fundamental goals.

The reader may well feel: (1) that if statehood would greatly improve peoples' lives while more generations needed to struggle for decolonization, it cannot be dismissed out of hand; (2) that many other people in the US must struggle with racism, with poverty, and with the history of hostility and exploitation from "above" in a system supposedly dedicated to equality. There are common goals and methods in those various struggles. Two US Senators from the State of Puerto Rico right now would have a near-revolutionary effect not only on the island's fortunes within the US, but on all those other struggles simultaneously. That's nothing to sneeze at, even though it isn't the decolonization of Puerto Rico. Engaging those ideas and explaining the grounds of your response helps the reader, and helps you.

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