The day of the long-awaited United States Presidential debate finally arrived. Sometimes, after everything that’s happened on the campaign trail, I sit back and wonder…Why? Let’s clear some things up before I continue; I’m a Bernie supporter who understands that: Hillary is currently the best option, Donald Trump is an inexperienced, ethnocentric danger, and Johnson and Stein are securing some highly worrying “protest votes”. So, this past week I sat down to watch Trump and Clinton attempt a politically correct version of MTV Roasts. This time, I watched legitimately, not just for potential comedic material. And, believe me, there’s lots of it.
To be honest, the debate went as expected. Both candidates took the stage, and the usual ensued: Trump resembling an eternally triggered, spray-tanned Kermit The Frog, and Hillary being Hillary. While no official winner is declared, it is my personal belief that Hillary’s detailed explanations and poise in the face of various unwarranted interruptions certainly granted her victory. With the general topics of wealth inequality, race relations, and security at home and abroad, the debate maintained an interesting pace. The majority of the nation’s most pressing topics were discussed, except for one: Puerto Rico, the crisis-ridden Caribbean colony kept by the United States since the year 1898.
As a Puerto Rican, I absolutely love how politicians in the United States never discuss their colonies. Puerto Rico, my home, has been a United States colony since U.S. armed forces took the island from Spain. To summarize Puerto Rico’s condition: Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens under the Jones-Shafroth Act of 1917, but have no representation in the Senate; our lives are affected by Congressional decisions, yet Puerto Rico’s Resident Commissioner cannot vote on the House floor. It’s like being Palestine in the United Nations: you know you’re in trouble, they know you’re in trouble, but the fact that you’re an “observer” (yes, Palestine can’t vote in the U.N.) makes sure that next to nothing useful will ever be done. Thus, Puerto Rico does not receive full Constitutional protection from a country that can impact any of its institutions with one decision made by Congress. It’s not very democratic, and we’re not much of a Republic.
While watching the candidates speak on the issues that plague residents of the United States, I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if they were as concerned about Puerto Rico. When Trump designated the United States as “a country that’s doing so badly” and is “being ripped off by every single country in the world”, I couldn’t help but think about how the Cabotage Laws, which prohibit any cargo ship not bearing the U.S flag from docking in Puerto Rico, cut us off from trading with the rest of the world. I couldn’t help but think about how, while Puerto Rico gives the United States more than fifty-eight million in exports and trade, we only receive roughly thirteen million[1] from them.
When the topic of race relations arose, I couldn’t help but think about how, in the Insular Cases of the 1900s, we were referred to as “alien races” impossible to govern under the “Anglo-Saxon principles”[2] of the judicial officials deciding the extent of our Constitutional rights. I couldn’t help but think about how the Supreme Court Justice who presided that case, Justice Henry Billings Brown, was the same man who wrote the case of “Plessy v. Ferguson” which established the “separate but equal” doctrine that targeted the Black community. No United States President has ever issued an apology for the racist commentary made towards the inhabitants of U.S. territories by the lawyers and professors who examined this case.
Puerto Rico has a higher poverty rate than the majority - if not all - of the United States; around forty-six percent of Puerto Ricans live below the poverty level, compared to the United States’ level of around fourteen percent shown by Census data. We are currently trapped by a seventy billion dollar debt deemed un-payable by our Governor. Our sales tax was recently increased from seven percent to 11.5 percent, an unbearable burden for an island with such a high poverty rate. We cannot file for bankruptcy like Detroit[3], and the “Fiscal Control Board” established in Puerto Rico by congress may soon be reducing the minimum wage to $4.25 for all residents under twenty five years of age. Today, on the 30th of September, they took control of all major agencies, public corporations, cooperatives, and the University of Puerto Rico. It’s safe to say that we have more than a few problems.
Whenever I watch American politicians discuss important issues, I wonder what they would have to say about my home. Whenever I watch something like this debate, I become frustrated at the fact that our condition is never acknowledged. Puerto Rico’s entire population feels the effects of the decisions made by these individuals, yet we will never be able to vote for the people deciding our future. I cannot watch them speak without questioning what they would say about us, and where their interests lie when it comes to their 118-year colony. So here I am, watching the debate without an actual voice. I may support Hillary, I may loathe Trump, but the irony of it all is that I will never be able to vote.
[1] https://raulcolon.net/money-flow-puerto-rico-and-u...
[2] Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 244, 287, 21 S. Ct. 770, 787 (1901)