Puerto Rico and the Unfinished Task of the American Empire

Captured as war booty in 1898 and managed since then as an unincorporated American territory, Puerto Rico’s 4 million American residents still await for a final resolution of their island’s relational status with the mother country. Meanwhile Congress, uncommitted, claims to wait for a clear signal of Puerto Ricans’ preference for either incorporation and eventual statehood into the Union, modification around the edges of the present status, or a declaration of nationhood under either full independence or a pact of free-association. Thus for 111 years Puerto Ricans have squabbled and Congress has demurred. As US relations with Cuba seem to offer new promise and as other sister territories in the Caribbean presently revise their former European imperial connections around integration, free association or independence, Puerto Rico is examining its Caribbean possibilities under new light.

To talk about the emerging options, we invited two distinguished scholars:

Awilda Paláu Suárez holds masters’ degrees in Social Work, Hispanic Studies and Sociology and a doctorate in Sociology from Universidad Complutense in Madrid. Now retired as Professor from the University of Puerto Rico, Dr. Palau has an extensive published bibliography on political and social behavior and a long record as a journalist in New York and Puerto Rico. She was Executive Director of the Institute for Puerto Rican Culture and a member of numerous boards dealing with Puerto Rican social and economic issues.

Alfredo Carrasquillo Ramirez is a practicing psychoanalyst, executive coach and consultant on organizational development, and associate professor of Business Administration, Non-profit Management and Communications at the Universidad del Sagrado Corazon in Puerto Rico.He pursued advanced studies in Puerto Rico, Spain, Mexico the United States and Quebec.He is a journalism essayst and columnist on topics of citizenship and democracy and author ofnumerous books, among them: Diálogos sobre iniciativas ciudadanas para el fortalecimiento democrático de las Américas (2009) and Los gobiernos locales en la construcción del futuro de los países (2009).

Discussing these presentations was:

David Lewis is Vice President of Manchester Trade Ltd. He has been involved in the CAFTADR-US and Andean-US FTA negotiations and in WTO-Doha negotiations and multilateral trade initiatives in Europeand Asia for Latin American and Caribbean clients.as well as on export development initiatives under the U.S. trade preference program AGOA – Africa Growth & Opportunity Act. He is a regular commentator on international trade to CNN “Economia y Finanzas” and e-publishes “Manchester Trade Updates”.He previously served as Deputy Executive Director of Caribbean/Latin American Action, Director/Chief of Party of the USAID/OECS Caribbean Policy Project, Assistant Secretary of State for Caribbean Development of Puerto Rico; and Director of Research and Regional Coordination for CRIES-Central America.

Minutes

Palau discussed at length how the Puerto Rican colony has lost importance in recent years. Once a key military and geopolitical outpost as an American response to Soviet support for Cuba, Puerto Rico is now a net burden on the US taxpayers and of benefit only to US commercial interests which are broadly represented there. Underneath those changing circumstances however, Palau added, the piracy and illegal trade which has characterized Puerto Rico over the centuries now comes to the fore as drug-related activity fills the void left by a foundering economy. In that long process and under the constraint of a US control over much of public life, the notion of “citizenship” has had little opportunity to develop in the island. Palau characterized this attitude as one of a societal adolescence and dependence on external powers, complicated by extreme mobility of the population over the last century after successive structural changes in the economy (from basic agrarian to sugar plantation to urban underemployment to circular migration to the US) disarticulated communities.

Carrasquillo continued the theme of the expectation of the “parent” to solve the island’s problems. Puerto Ricans, he argued, have gotten to see themselves as passive, reactive objects in the story of the master rather than actors in their own story. A characteristic developed under four centuries of Spanish tutelage and continued under US occupation, this dependence is perhaps best illustrated by Puerto Rico’s reverence to the Virgin of Providence as its patron saint.

Lewis elaborated on the theme further, but challenged the speakers with a distinction between colonialism and unexercised sovereignty. He argued that Puerto Rico has powers within the constraints of the present relationship similar to those of states of the Union, but which Puerto Rico chooses not to exercise. He argues that the felt limitations among Puerto Ricans are far more severe than the practical ones, and argues that Puerto Rico’s problem is one of management as much as it is of sovereignty, of an insular mindset as much as a colonial one, of governance as much as it is status. He further argues that Puerto Ricans have excluded themselves from US policy circles beyond those limited directly to the relationship, failing to press the limits of the limitations of the relationship to the extent that some states have done for example with issues regarding trade with Cuba and advocacy regarding foreign trade limitations.

The subsequent discussion focused on issues of the historical “bleep” of 1945-2005 which transformed Puerto Rico, but the latter’s failure to subsequently adapt to the new circumstances. The world has changed, quipped one participant, and Puerto Rico has not changed with it to the extent that states like Florida, Alaska and Arkansas have. Perhaps due to a poor self-image, Puerto Rico has become increasingly isolated and unresponsive to a globalized world, insisting instead on a supposedly unacknowledged exceptionality. “We’re just not that important anymore” said a participant. One observer noted that, were Puerto Ricans to seek US statehood, they would face opposition from Democrats who are still seeking statehood for the District of Columbia.

A participant reminded the group that “Puerto Rico” is not just the island and its residents but also a diaspora equally numerous that has may be mobilized at the service of a solution. The session ended in a sober but positive note that Puerto Rico will deal with its present crisis of governance, taking greater advantage of the opportunities that it does have at its disposal, a reliance on the effectiveness of US public institutions at its serve, and relying more on a newly evolving sense of civic engagement among its citizens.