Puerto Rico's possible futures
Proponents of the Puerto Rico Status Act (H.R. 8393) are like two adversaries standing atop a cliff hundreds of feet above crashing waves, with their hands bound together, about to leap off the edge, and uncertain what fate will greet them when they hit the water. Both know they’ll get hurt no matter the outcome, perhaps one worse than the other. But they have also concluded that whatever happens when they land will be better than what they’ve lived with for almost 125 years.
We don’t have to worry too much about them, because while the Puerto Rico Status Act passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 233-191, with every vote in opposition coming from Republicans, it is unlikely to pass in the Senate when that body reconvenes in 2023. Most likely, it will be blocked by Republicans, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t opposition from the left. Even though the bill probably won’t pass, it’s important that we take it seriously as it could be the strongest proposal yet to imagine an end to Puerto Rico’s colonial status, primarily because it would bind Congress to act on whatever determination Puerto Ricans make about their future in the plebiscite mandated by it.
The two adversaries who, through this bill, have decided to take the leap together, support Puerto Rican independence and Puerto Rican statehood, respectively. They share in common more than a century of distrust and mutual recrimination. If you want to better understand the debates over Puerto Rico’s territorial status over the past century and more—which, in many ways, has been the lens through which all politics in Puerto Rico has been seen—you should read up on: 1) the lives and careers of pro-independence advocates like Pedro Albizu Campos, Lolita Lebrón, Oscar López Rivera, and most, maybe all, leaders of the Young Lords; and 2) the lives and careers of pro-statehood advocates like José Celso Barbosa, Rafael Martínez Nadal, Luis Ferré, Carlos Romero-Barceló, and, today, Zoraida Fonalledas. They’ve fought for their desired outcomes for a long, long time.
The Puerto Rico Status Act promises to end the colonialism under which Puerto Ricans have lived for some 500 years, first under Spain, then under the United States. It proposes a binding plebiscite that would give Puerto Ricans three options: independence, statehood, or sovereignty in free association with the United States. Despite the likely demise of the bill in the Senate, its main sponsors, including Rep. Nydia Velázquez and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, will now work to persuade both Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell of its importance, and will remind their Republican colleagues—again, because they’re the ones who are most likely to oppose the bill—that support for statehood is, and has been for decades, the official position of their party, as expressed in party platforms.
Why do Republicans today oppose the Puerto Rico Status Act, given its possible outcome of statehood, and why have they done an about face on the issue? First, it’s important to note that there’s plenty of disagreement over whether Republicans were every truly committed to statehood and full equality. President Gerald Ford, when he was a lame duck in December 1976, announced his support for statehood at the bottom of a ski slope in Aspen, still winded from the run. During the 1980 Republican primaries, when George H.W. Bush was a candidate, he proclaimed during a stop in Puerto Rico (it was the first year that Puerto Ricans participated in primary elections), “estadidad ahora, statehood now!” But every time Congress suggests any amount of seriousness about debating Puerto Rico’s status, Republicans balk.
It would be foolish, Pat Buchanan argued in the early 1990s, to incorporate a territory where 10 percent of the population would immediately try to secede. He pointed to Quebec as a warning of what could happen if Puerto Rico were admitted as a state. More offensively, he opposed the incorporation of Brown speakers of Spanish. Luis Ferré, the leader of the statehood movement at the time who was close personal friends with Bush, called Buchanan’s opposition a “perversely xenophobic attack.” Buchanan may have been one of the few to express such sentiments out loud, but Puerto Rican Democrats and Republicans have suspected that Buchanan’s sentiments were more widespread, and that the main opposition to statehood is the fact that it would make Puerto Ricans the equals of all other Americans.
That might be subtext today. The opposition stated by most Republicans instead has to do with their skittishness about Puerto Rico’s indebtedness (which they’ve done nothing to alleviate), the argument that statehood is a Democratic plot to get two more Democratic Senators (which could be a likely outcome in the near term, but who knows how politics in Puerto Rico would evolve?), and, this time around, that Democrats were trying to ram the bill through before Christmas and without debate. Marjorie Taylor Greene was more blunt. She said, “I’m just not interested in Puerto Rico being a state,” and added that she didn’t even think Puerto Ricans should have a say in the matter. (See the above point about some Republicans not being able to even fathom Puerto Rican equality).
While most opposition is coming from Republicans, there’s also opposition on the left. My former (brilliant) colleague at Northwestern, Michael Rodríguez Muñiz, whose argument, I think, is representative, tweeted that the Puerto Rico Status Act is flawed because it doesn’t contain any provisions for reparations to Puerto Rico or Puerto Ricans for more than a century of colonialism; it won’t educate Puerto Rican voters in advance of the plebiscite about the violent repression of the independence movement and of pro-independence activists; and that Puerto Ricans in the diaspora won’t be able to participate in the plebiscite, whereas “recently settled cryptocapitalists” can (assuming they’re eligible to vote in Puerto Rican elections). His thread on the matter was super interesting. Check it out here.
Michael, if you happen to see this, my brief response would be this: you’re totally right, and I also would like to see the measures you’re calling for implemented. But I am positive that they could never have been included in any sort of compromise bill. I’m also not sure that they belong in a bill that simply lays out status options, what the process will be for Puerto Ricans to decide on them, and how the transitions could work. I think that an educational campaign laying out the violence against pro-independence activists could run parallel to the campaigns that would happen in advance of the binding plebiscite. I also wonder whether Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans would have even more leverage to discuss reparations if the bill passed, as an independent sovereign nation, a state, or a sovereign in free association. (In the same way that Mexico had leverage during the Bracero Program to end the ability of certain states to participate if they mistreated Mexican workers).
These sorts of future scenarios, assuming passage of the bill, however unlikely, are what interest me most. What I’ve written so far is historical context and a brief glimpse into the fraught politics of the issue in the present, which is infinitely more complicated than any brief missive could provide. But thinking about what the possible changes to Puerto Rico’s territorial status might look like can be productive in several ways. First, I assume Puerto Rico’s status will change at some point in the future; the status quo is so broken that it has to change. Second, looking into the future can shed light on what supporters and opponents fear might happen if an option they don’t like becomes reality. Third, thinking about possible futures could possibly break up some of the sediment that has formed around the issue over the past century and more, because looking at an uncertain future is also a reminder about the past, that things do indeed change over time; and just because things might look a certain way in the present, that does not mean things will look the same way forever (see my earlier post about contingency). So, when it comes to a future in which Puerto Rico is an independent nation, a state, or a sovereign in free association, what are some of the questions I have about what each scenario might look like?
If Puerto Rico becomes an independent sovereign nation, in between the time that gets decided by plebiscite and the time it takes effect, how many supporters of statehood currently residing in Puerto Rico will leave the island and settle in the United States? Likewise, how many Puerto Ricans in the diaspora who’ve spent decades supporting independence will actually move to Puerto Rico to live in the nation they’ve pined for? I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some immediate scrambling in lots of directions, but I also have a harder time imagining Puerto Ricans in the diaspora choosing to resettle in Puerto Rico, than I do imagining Puerto Ricans on the island moving to the mainland.
If Puerto Rico becomes a state, I wonder about many of the same things. Namely, what would become of Puerto Rico’s independence movement? I assume it would still exist, just like an independence movement has continued to exist in Hawaii. Supporters of independence worry that if Puerto Rico becomes a state, it will lead to the island’s even further integration with the American empire, and the further erosion of cultural, religious, and linguistic traditions. I’m sure this is true to a degree, but in this regard it seems to me like statehood might only hasten processes that are already underway. Is the idea that an independent Puerto Rican nation would completely reverse them? I would also note that even the most partisan-identified places in the United States have significant voices of opposition organizing for different and better futures, and I expect the same would be true in the state of Puerto Rico, were it to become a state.
If Puerto Rico becomes a sovereign in free association, what will the Articles of Free Association hammered out by the Bilateral Negotiating Commission look like? They will define important issues like citizenship and when certain existing provisions in the relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States will expire. There’s an important line in the Puerto Rico Status Act: “The Articles of Free Association between the United States and Puerto Rico may be terminated at will by either party at any time.” This seems to me to mean that the United States or Puerto Rico could pull out whenever they wanted. So if anything at all happened that either side didn’t like, they could renegotiate the Articles, but couldn’t they also just end the relationship? And what would be the default then? Sovereign independence? Experts on this issue, please help me understand! One of the things that worries me about this option is that Puerto Ricans today will see it as a kind of middle ground, a measure that will allow them to keep their citizenship (at least until the Bilateral Negotiating Committee decides otherwise), at the same time that they become more independent from the United States. But this option confers to the Bilateral Negotiating Committee and the Articles of Free Association a lot of power to determine what the relationship will look like, and it seems impossible to say with certainty how their negotiations will go. It’s easy to think that the United States will have the upper hand in those negotiations, and that the USA will always represent its own interests above Puerto Rico’s. Even if this proved to be true, though, how different would that be compared with the current state of affairs?
I think some of the opposition to the Puerto Rico Status Act coming from both the right and the left has to do with their respective fears that the other side might win, and an outcome other than the one they prefer would be unacceptable to them. If that’s the case, opposition to this bill would seem to mean that, to its opponents on both sides, maintenance of the status quo—i.e., colonialism—would be preferable to any status they don’t support. And this despite the fact that the only thing that all sides seem to agree on is that the current status is unjust. Still, the most likely outcome is status quo, since the bill probably won’t pass in the Senate due to Republican opposition. As objectionable as her point of view may be, Rep. Greene, who just doesn’t want Puerto Rico to be a state, and who doesn’t even think Puerto Ricans should have a say in the matter, will prevail.