Why should you care?
When my mother was confronted by the famous Puerto Rican patriot, Don Pedro Albizu Campos
on the issue of nationalism and independence, citing India as an example,
his reply was: “India is Britain's problem. Puerto Rico is your problem.”
Of all the human and civil rights' abuses of which the United States is guilty,
I concur with my mother that our holding Puerto Rico as a
colony is the most egregous. Yes, we are complicit in the genocide of the
Iraqi people (infants, mostly) in our tacit (and not so tacit) support of the U.N. sanctions against
Iraq; sure, we have engineered the toppling, and even the assassination of leaders of state (Chile's Allende
comes immediately to mind.) But what we did to the Hawaiian people tops them all.
What does that have to do with the price of parcha in Rio Piedras? Well,
we did our damdnest to take away their language, their culture, their national identity, their
dignity and pride, then gave it back in specks and dribbles for the benfit of the
tourist trade.
People ask my mother, “What about statehood for Puerto Rico?” Her reply, “Ask the
Hawaiian people how they feel about statehood!”
We commited a great injustice to the people of Hawai'i. We have a chance to
avoid the same mistake with Puerto Rico by transferring any and all powers to the
Puerto Rican people until they are once again an independent and sovereign nation.