Posts Tagged ‘Puerto Rico Status’
Looking at Report by Obama’s Task Force on Puerto Rico (Part 1)
10:16 am By Maegan La Mala · Politics|Puerto Rico · 5 Comments
17 Mar 2011Yesterday the President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico’s Status report was released. It is a 122-page report that starts with a 7-point series of recommendations on how to move forward from Puerto Rico’s colonial status. It also includes a look at the island’s economic and social issues.
In this first of a multi-part look, I am going to focus on the 7 points regarding Puerto Rico’s status.
Briefly, the 7 recommendations are as follows :
1: The Task Force recommends that all relevant parties—the President, Congress, and the leadership and people of Puerto Rico—work to ensure that Puerto Ricans are able to express their will about status options and have that will acted upon by the end of 2012 or soon thereafter .
2: The Task Force recommends that the permissible status options include Statehood, Independence, Free Association, and Commonwealth.
3: Although the Task Force supports any fair method for determining the will of the people of Puerto Rico, it has a marginal preference for a system involving two plebiscites.
4: If a plebiscite is chosen, only residents of Puerto Rico should be eligible to vote.
5: The President and Congress should commit to preserving U S citizenship for Puerto Rican residents who are U S citizens at the time of any transition to Independence, if the people of Puerto Rico choose a status option that results in Puerto Rico’s Independence.
6: The President and Congress should ensure that Puerto Rico controls its own cultural and linguistic identity.7: If efforts on the Island do not provide a clear result in the short term, the President should support, and Congress should enact, self-executing legislation that specifies in advance for the people of Puerto Rico a set of acceptable status options that the United States is politically committed to fulfilling.
Now allow me to break this all down a little
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PART I. Puerto Rican Political Prisoners: 30 years in U.S. prisons
7:10 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · history|Puerto Rico · 1 Comment
14 Apr 2010The following came via my Facebook feed and is part one of a presentation given by human and civil rights attorney Jan Susler on April 7, 2010 at the Union Theological Seminary. I feel it really gives some good background on Puerto Rican history and it’s colonial context.
In the past month, activists in Puerto Rico, New York and Chicago participated in art installations, voluntarily locking themselves into store-fronts converted into jail cells, each person spending a long and lonely 24 hour shift, symbolically deprived of their liberty, privacy, society, movement, and sensory stimulation.
Why on earth would dozens of people voluntarily submit themselves to such symbolic privations? To reflect on an historic moment: the 30th anniversary of the arrest of 11 Puerto Rican men and women who would be accused and convicted of seditious conspiracy, and sentenced to serve the equivalent of life in U.S. prisons. And to call attention to the fact that one of them—Carlos Alberto Torres—has been in prison for 30 years, another—Oscar Lopez Rivera—, for 29 years; and another—Avelino Gonzalez Claudio—, for 2. Of the 2,000 some Puerto Rican political prisoners since the U.S. invasion of Puerto Rico, Carlos Alberto is the longest held.
What could motivate a Carlos Alberto, an Oscar, or an Avelino, to risk not symbolic, but real, concrete, privations? What is it about the situation of the Puerto Rican nation that could lead to people being accused of conspiracies related to winning independence, including seditious conspiracy— conspiring to use force against the “lawful” authority of the U.S. over Puerto Rico?
The Troublesome U.S. Stepchild, Puerto Rico : Part I Vieques Si
11:58 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Puerto Rico · 5 Comments
12 Feb 2010Born with U.S. citizenship but without the right to vote for the president, Puerto Ricans are the stepchildren of the United States. The island was a spoil of the Spanish-American war and since then has been used as a strategic military base and its residents have been used as guinea pigs for everything from birth control to radiation.
And the question that is always asked is, well why don’t Puerto Ricans do something about their “Estado Libre Asociado” or free associated state, which in name makes as little sense as it does in practice. There are those that point to the numerous referendums, which as I have said a million times before, are nothing more than glorified opinion polls. The referendums have no political power. The only body that has the power to change the status of Puerto Rico is the U.S. Congress, not the Puerto Rican people themselves. No wonder there are organizations like los Macheteros.
And why is this relevant now? Well as a Rican, it’s always relevant to me. From the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep, I am aware of my Rican-ness and the privilege that living on Long Island has over living on the island of enchantment. But for non-Ricans, they may suddenly see more of Puerto Rico in their news and not necessarily from people they would expect.
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Puerto Rico is a Natural Resource that Should Determine It’s Own Fate
7:24 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Puerto Rico · 1 Comment
25 Jul 2009
Ah the politics of colonization. I shouldn’t be surprised that The Natural Resources Committee of Congress, a committee that deals with fisheries, wildlife, Native Americans and possessions of the U.S. (aka colonies), approved a proposal Wednesday that would let Puerto Ricans decide their island’s political status. What are Puerto Ricans and Indigenous people if not dehumanized things that need protecting and caretaking?
Voters would choose between keeping the island’s commonwealth status, adopted in 1952, or to opt for something different. In the latter case, a second plebiscite would let them decide whether they wanted statehood, independence or independence with a loose association to the United States.
Not All Americans Welcomed at the Summit of the Americas
6:49 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Cuba|Latin America|Obama|Politics|Puerto Rico · 2 Comments
17 Apr 2009
A poet friend of mine invited me to join a Facebook Group called , “AMERICA” is not U.S.A. AMERICA is the name for a whole continent”. This US-centrism has been a peeve of mine for at least ten years now, specifically from when I lived in Chile and found myself in the very difficult position of defending my Latina/Puerto Rican identity (Yes, Kai I’m talking about being Rican again, sigh).
Now the idea of who is “America” comes up again against the context of The Summit of the Americas, which started yesterday in Trinidad. Love him or hate him, President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua raised a good point at the start of the Summit, saying:
“It is not of the Americas , because Cuba is missing, Puerto Rico is missing,”
So how can you have a Summit of the Americas without two nations facing important challenges rooted in colonialism?
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April is Freedom Month
8:03 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Activism|Justice|New York City|Puerto Rico · Comments Off
8 Apr 2009
Most know that April is Poetry Month (and really we’ll get on that) pero did you also know that April is Freedom Month? Specifically focusing on the case of the Puerto Rican Political Prisoners, April is period of time to raise awareness about the Puerto Rican Political Prisoners and the Independence of Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rican Political Prisoners are Oscar Lopez Rivera, Carlose Alberto Torres ,and Avelino Gonzalez Claudio.
This April marks the 29th anniversary of the capture of the Puerto Rican Political Prisoners! The Puerto Rican Political Prisoners were incarcerated for their actions in support of the Independence of Puerto Rico; a colony of the United States for 110 years. The Political Prisoners were never charged with any violent crimes, but were given unjust sentences and incarcerated in the worst prisons in the United States.
The month is filled with activities that are not just educational and serve justice, pero are also fun. While the events listed are in the NYC area, that shouldn’t keep you from being inspired to perhaps make your own event or take one small action.
For more information on Freedom Month and the Puerto Rican Political Prisoners visit ProLibertad.
Obama Wants to Resolve Puerto Rico’s Colonial Status While Saying Nothing on Assault on Occupied Palestine
11:03 am By Maegan La Mala · Gaza|Palestine|Politics|Puerto Rico · 17 Comments
4 Jan 2009
President Elect Obama sent a message to Puerto Rico for the swearing in of the new, pro-statehood governor, Luis G. Fortuño.
President-elect of the United States Barack Obama reiterated that he will try to resolve the colonial case of Puerto Rico during his first term and explained that self-determination is a “basic right” of Puerto Ricans, for which reason he will undertake responsibility for seeing that Puerto Ricans have “a voice” in the solution.
Wait, a voice in the solution? Am I wrong in thinking that if self-determination is a basic right, then shouldn’t Puerto Ricans decided the solution, not just have a voice?
What a U.S. Passport Won’t Get You As a Rican : A Vote!
3:21 pm By Maegan La Mala · Puerto Rico|US Presidential Race 2008 · 7 Comments
14 Oct 2008
Not all U.S. citizens can vote. Specifically I am referring to Puerto Ricans. Pero before I am accused of bringing up my background, I direct you to the words of another Rican:
In October of 2008 I have discovered yet another off-putting situation. The other bearers of this passport are receiving their ballots this month, a head start to this November election. It’s an ex-pat party: the hitchhiker who went south from Recife and voted in Salvador, the old roommates from Buenos Aires, the new friends in Recife. All of them received their absentee ballots or voted at the embassy. Friends, acquaintances, strangers: all American citizens.But, somehow, I am different than them. I cannot vote. Though I am weighed down by the negatives of carrying the same passport, I do not have the same rights. Why? The last address I registered with the IRS (and the American government in general) is in Puerto Rico, my home (non) state. And Puerto Ricans, though US citizens in paper, are second class citizens in practice. Therefore, I am not allowed to vote in the presidential elections, unless I move and prove that my current legal residence lies in of the (actual) 50 states.
I carry the weight of this passport because I have no option. There is no Puerto Rican passport; I am a second class citizen with no alternative.
Read the entire post and the struggle that the colonial status creates at Zerotres
y mil graciaa a Elenamary for sending me the link.
Puerto Rico Gov. To Take Enhanced Commonwealth Argument to U.N
1:31 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Politics|Puerto Rico · 2 Comments
19 May 2008
I’m with Latino Pundit. I just don’t get how Puerto Rican Governor Anibal Acevedo can claim that “an enhanced Commonwealth” = a more sovereign Puerto Rico. And yet that is exactly what he will argue when he appears before the United Nations Decolonization Committee on June 9th.
Puerto Rico is not a colony as per a 1952 United Nations decision based on compact between the U.S. and Puerto Rico establishing the Estado Libre Asociado or Commonwealth. Commonwealth and colony have alot more in common than starting with the letter C.
NY Puerto Rican Activists Targetted by Feds
11:56 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Activism|Justice|New York City|Puerto Rico · 1 Comment
31 Dec 2007
Targeting activists who promote the independence of Puerto Rico isn’t something new but it is no less concerning especially when it hits close to home. Hector Rivera, a founder of the Welfare Poets and others were subpoenaed to appear before a Federal Grand jury investigating the Puerto Rican Independence Movement in general, and in particular, the Ejercito Popular Boricua (EPB: Popular Boricua Army) aka the Macheteros.
Tania Frontera, Christopher Torres and Julio Pabon Jr. are scheduled to appear before a Federal Grand Jury on January 11, 2008. Hector Rivera,co-founder of the cultural institution The Welfare Poets, is also expected to be served with a subpoena to appear on that day. In the past, due to the fact that some pro-independence activists have traditionally refused to receive the subpoenas from the Grand Jury or to respond to its questions, many have ended up behind bars.
Hola!
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