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Aerial view of El Morro, the Spanish fortress, in Old San Juan<\/p><\/div>\n
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Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n With this research guide I hope\u00a0to generate a better understanding of the Puerto Rican people and their conflicted national identity. I discuss the struggles that stem from pertaining to an unclear political status of neither belonging to a state nor being a sovereign country. \u00a0The ambiguous status the island has as an Estado Libre Asociado, <\/em>called\u00a0Commonwealth in English but directly translating to ‘State Free Associated’, of the United States.<\/p>\n There are 17 non-self governing territories remaining in the world today, Puerto Rico does not qualify as one of these as it is governed in many ways by the island\u2019s internal government, while still requiring its inhabitants\u00a0to pay federal taxes and uphold the U.S. Constitution and laws despite lack of representation in the Senate, extremely limited representation in Congress, and lack of voting rights. The Puerto Rican nationals are U.S. Citizens and enjoy many\u00a0rights that come with\u00a0citizenship, with certain restrictions delineated by the federal\u00a0government. The many contradictions of the relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico are not only political, but also linguistic, cultural, ideological, religious and social among others. This situation causes a severe identity crisis in Puerto Rico, where the people feel a strong sense of national pride while lacking control over their nation. Puerto Rico has not been independent since the imposition of Spanish rule in 1498, this long history of dependence on foreign command\u00a0has led a large part of the Puerto Rican community\u00a0to believe that the island is incapable of prospering independently. This belief has guaranteed\u00a0the survival of the complicated and discriminatory relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n Since 2008, Puerto Rico has suffered from a growing financial crisis and\u00a0increasing\u00a0unemployment rates, which climaxed\u00a0in 2015 with the Puerto Rican debt crisis tarnishing the economy. \u00a0This problem was primarily\u00a0caused by the constraining laws and crippling policies imposed on Puerto Rico by the United States. The current political status of the island provides the foreign dominating power with the ability to treat Puerto Rican people\u00a0like equals when it is convenient, and neglect them when not.\u00a0\u00a0Puerto Rico is consequentially suffering from what is being referred to as the brain drain, in which the young educated elite are abandoning the island to move to mainland United States in search of stability and professional\u00a0opportunities. The increasing violence, the enveloping economic struggle, the imposition of exorbitant taxes on the middle class, the increasing cost of life, and the renewed sense of nationalism are once again\u00a0uniting the Puerto Rican people in a call for change and clarification of the island’s political status. \u00a0The Puerto Rican issue has continuously been raised by national leaders and critics around the world, and appeals to the United Nations and international actors this year has finally raised enough concern that an actual change is sure to happen. \u00a0People are now demanding statehood or independence, but refusing to continue in this\u00a0backwards in-between position.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Puerto Rican Political Status: What is\u00a0ELA?<\/em><\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n All major problems of the island-nation stem from the unique and unstable political status the island has and its undefined relationship with the United States. The 1952 Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico created this new governmental system that is now being highly questioned.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Puerto Rican Governor and creator of the Free Associated State, Luis Mu\u00f1oz Mar\u00edn<\/p><\/div>\n Luis Mu\u00f1oz Mar\u00edn was extremely popular in the United States as well as in Puerto Rico, he referred to himself as a proud American citizen.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Documents on the Constitutional History of Puerto Rico. <\/em>Washington, D.C.: Issued by the Office of Puerto Rico, 1948.<\/p>\n This is the official document issued by the Office of Puerto Rico to describe the evolution of Constitutional rights Puerto Ricans have obtained life under Spanish and American rule for a better understanding of the problems involved. It refers to Puerto Rico\u2019s previous status as a Spanish province, living under the Constitution of 1876, when it became a United States possession in 1878. Under Spain Puerto Rico was controlled by special laws. Following the 1878 Treaty of Paris Puerto Rico was ceded to the hands of the US who imposed military rule until the establishment of civil government through the Foraker Act, and in 1917 were granted US Citizenship. The final chapter presents a few contradictory cases on the political status of the United States territories and their implications.<\/p>\n \u201cIn presidential messages it has been repeatedly recommended to Congress that the political status of Puerto Rico be crystalized in a manner which would allow the Puerto Ricans themselves to study and consider the proposed solutions, and figure in the final determination of their future relationship to the mainland.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Additional Documents<\/p>\n The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. February 2, 1952.\u00a0http:\/\/welcome.topuertorico.org\/constitu.shtml<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Badillo, Vanessa. \u00a0The Economic Implications of Puerto Rican Statehood.\u00a0<\/em> Thesis for Harvard College Department of Economics. 2005.\u00a0http:\/\/thesis.haverford.edu\/dspace\/handle\/10066\/597.<\/p>\n \u201cIn reality Puerto Rico\u2019s status is neither that of an associated free state nor that of a state of the Union, but rather that of a territory\u201d. \u00a0Badillo views\u00a0U.S. – Puerto Rico relations as undeniably colonial, and refers to the denouncement by other Caribbean and Latin American countries of the American oppressive treatment and the denial of the inalienable right to self-determination.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Consequences\u00a0and reactions of the Free Associated State<\/strong><\/p>\n El\u00a0Estado Libre Asociado<\/em> or FreeState-ism is the \u201cpsychological synthesis of the weak, the timid and the docile\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0– Ren\u00e9 Marqu\u00e9s<\/p>\n \u201cThe colonial inheritance weighs on our people with the heaviness of death.” \u00a0 – Mariano Abril<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pedreira, Antonio S. Insularismo: Ensayos de interpretaci\u00f3n puertorrique\u00f1a, Segunda edici\u00f3n. <\/em>San Juan, PR: Imprenta Venezuela E, Franklin & Co., 1942.<\/p>\n Insularismo <\/em>is a compilation of essays collected by renowned historian Antonio S. Pedreira, with the goal of answering to the question of who Puerto Ricans are and what are Puerto Ricans being considered globally, attempting to recollect the defining aspects of Puerto Rican culture and its collective psyche. Pedreira introduces his book by stating his pages will lack the admiring tone that the Puerto Rican complacency has created to measure Puerto Rican reality, and criticizes the optimistic generally-help perception of Puerto Rican history that makes us believe we are the non plus ultra of the Antillian countris. He refers to Puerto Ricans as aplatanados <\/em>or people who do not take action. He calls us an indefinable nation that has in its delusion of greatness the desire of hiding from itself and others the defects of our yearnings and conflicted identity, as we are the \u201cAmerican gesture of the culture of Spain\u201d. Pedreira identifies his time of the 1940s as one of indecision and transition, and calls on the abrupt discontinuity of our national evolution. He expresses our inability to take action and the lamenting of colonial reality.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Petrullo, Vicenzo. Puerto Rican Paradox<\/em>. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1947.<\/p>\n Vicenzo\u2019s goal is to interpret what happens to a people when denied self-government. He is a Texan who strives to understand the problems facing the millions of Spanish-speaking US citizens whose \u201ctreatment by the United States has been neither entirely good nor entirely bad\u201d. Puerto Rican Paradox <\/em>begins by understanding the culture of the island\u2019s people. Vicenzo understands that Puerto Rico is an old nation that has a set of concrete beliefs and ideologies both cultural and religious that will not be replaced with the conflicting US counterpart. Vicenzo also understands the huge language and geographical barriers that have not allowed the Puerto Ricans to fully integrate into US society. He also discusses the US treatment of Puerto Ricans as lesser beings or even as immigrants when on mainland US. Vicenzo believes the most appropriate solution to the Puerto Rican Paradox is improved relations, greater integration of cultures, and sovereignty of the Puerto Rican people, but does not believe independence is a proper solution.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Rise of nationalism, revolutionary insurrections and the fight for independence<\/strong><\/p>\n Painting of Pedro Albizu Campos with the Nationalist rendition of the Puerto Rican flag in the background.<\/p><\/div>\n “Porque cuando la tiran\u00eda es ley, la revoluci\u00f3n es orden”.<\/em><\/p>\n “Because when tyranny is law, revolution is order”.<\/p>\n -Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sil\u00e9n, Juan Angel. We, the Puerto Rican People: A Story of Oppression and Resistance. <\/em>Translated by Cedric Belfrage. R\u00edo Piedras, PR: Monthly Review Press, 1971.<\/p>\n Sil\u00e9n strives \u201cto explain the Puerto Rican people\u2019s fight for independence in a simple, clear, and reasoned way\u201d. The book does not delve into the defining aspects of Puerto Rican national character, but instead attempts to find a solution to the Puerto Rican political problem and \u201cto search for a positive view of the Puerto Rican\u201d.\u00a0Sil\u00e9n refers to the Lares revolution (El Grito de Lares) <\/em>of September 23, 1868 as a pivotal moment in which different strata of society came together to demand independence from Spain and the abolition of slavery. Sil\u00e9n shows deep dissatisfaction with the role the Puerto Rican bourgeoisie played in supporting autonomism stating the movement was\u00a0\u201cled by those most conservative in action, most aristocratic in essence, and only revolutionary in appearance\u201d. Sil\u00e9n\u00a0identifies the\u00a0large gap that existed between the countrymen and the elite as the elite who viewed them in a\u00a0sub-human condition. Under\u00a0U.S. dominion\u00a0important thing to highlight is how \u201cPuerto Ricans could arrive at assimilationsim in reaction to the discrimination, denial of rights, and racism which they- especially our black population- had experienced from their own ruling class\u201d. \u00a0He reflects on the effects of the loss of hope of the people, and the effects of the “basic discrepancy between what was\u00a0preached to us and the facts of our life” referring to the American promise and their non-commitment. The development of the Puerto Rican psyche is discussed\u00a0through what Richard Levins identifies as the six facets of situation: progress, concern about social degeneration, democratic convictions, class consciousness, nationalism, passivity and violence. Sil\u00e9n believes Puerto Rico must achieve independence only through force, he finalizes his essay-style book by stating that the dissolution of the colony will only come through force, and in Che Guevara’s word proclaims “Independece or Death!”.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Albizu Campos, Pedro. “Speech of September 23, 1950, commemorating the rising at Lares”. Lares, Puerto Rico, 1950.\u00a0http:\/\/media.smithsonianfolkways.org\/liner_notes\/paredon\/PAR02501.pdf.<\/p>\n Albizu Campos was Puerto Rico’s most prominent, well-spoken and influential nationalist leader. \u00a0Albizu Campos radically changed his political and ideological views after becoming the first Puerto Rican to graduate from Harvard Law School.\u00a0<\/strong>Albizu Campos was an outspoken nationalist, founder of the Nationalist Independence Party, who frequently denounced United States treatment of Puerto Rico and fervently fought for independence.\u00a0 This historic speech was delivered in a moment where many felt independence was truly within reach. \u00a0The U.S. response in containing Puerto Rican identity as much it could only infuriated the Nationalist Party members and resulted in Albizu’s convocation of a revolution. The latter U.S. imprisonment and dehumanization of Albizu Campos had a traumatic effect on the island’s national psyche. \u00a0Albizu Campos\u00a0commences by saying “It is not easy to give a speech when we have our mother laying in bed and an assassin waiting to take her life”; this moving speech ends stating that the only way to defy all the injustices made by the U.S. government is “as the men of Lares defied despotism, with the revolution”.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Torres, Michael and Teresa Venegas. “Who Is Albizu Campos?” (Film Trailer). Los Angeles, CA.\u00a0http:\/\/www.whoisalbizu.com\/?page_id=24<\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/img.timeinc.net\/time\/magazine\/archive\/covers\/1958\/1101580623_400.jpg\")
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