![[Puerto Rico flag]](PR.GIF)
By far the largest statehood organization on Earth is the New Progressive Party ("los Progresistas") of Puerto Rico. It ought to be. There are some 3.8 million Puerto Rican citizens of the United States on the island who are not entitled to vote for Congress or President because Puerto Rico is not a state. (Consider that the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 provided that new states can be admitted once they reach a population of 60,000!) A colony is an area that suffers unequal treatment, refusal of representation in the national legislature, and denial of a vote for national officers. By that perfectly reasonable definition, Puerto Rico is indisputably a colony. We of USI are appalled that the very Nation that gave rise to the modern anti-colonial movement should itself have colonies. And Puerto Rico isn't the only one! The U.S. also has colonies in the Pacific: Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas. And it even has a second colony in the Caribbean, the U.S. Virgin Islands! USI wants all that to end.
Estadistas (statehooders) have controlled the Puerto Rico governorship and legislature for a substantial portion of the past thirty years, but have never quite managed to persuade the people of Puerto Rico to renounce "Commonwealth" status and step up to statehood.
Puerto Rico suffers from confused identity and divided mind. It doesn't know whether it is "American" or "Latin American", a "country" or only part of a larger country. And Puerto Ricans don't know whether they are "Americans" or just "Puerto Ricans". They fear that taking statehood would put them on the path to cultural assimilation into English, and that many young Puerto Ricans will over time abandon Spanish first for bilingualism and then for unilingualism in English.
USI suggests that not resolving the island's status is more destructive than would be either statehood — even if it should eventually result in large-scale abandonment of Spanish — or independence, with all its economic costs and dangers to democratic stability.
Political uncertainty has economic costs, as, for instance, in investments not made for fear that some nationalist madness might seize the island and produce an independent country dominated by Castro-style "socialists" intent on creating a "worker's paradise" thru mass expropriations. What foreign businessman or major corporation will take such a risk with hundreds of millions of dollars?
The divided mind and endless status debate inflict emotional costs as well, and surely contribute to the island's drug and crime problems. Puerto Rico's depressed economy and eligibility for some forms of public assistance from the U.S. Government have contributed to a pronounced and unhealthy dependent mindset in all too many of the island's people, robbing them of initiative and hope for a future of personal self-reliance.
Refusal to commit to mastering English even as a second language has left intelligent Puerto Ricans out of the U.S. national economy, with all its opportunities, and kept otherwise highly educated Puerto Ricans from taking leadership positions in major U.S. corporations and nongovernmental organizations working on issues of importance to Puerto Ricans, such as poverty, regional development, education, and drug treatment. Naturally, Puerto Rico's nonstate status also prevents island politicians from entering the ranks of the Congressional leadership. That also prevents the rise of Puerto Ricans to positions of prominence in the United States' opinion leadership.
Instead, all the while the island's problems fester, the politicians argue about status! They should be far beyond status, which should finally be settled one way or another, and talking about solutions to everyday problems.
USI is unabashedly of undivided mind. We are statehooders, estadistas, and wish to influence Americans who can vote for Congress and the President (islanders cannot) to press their representatives to end Puerto Rico's destructive paralysis by ending "Commonwealth" unilaterally and forcing Puerto Ricans to choose between the only two permanent statuses available: statehood and independence. We believe they will choose statehood — and the sooner the better.
![[U.S. Virgin Islands flag]](VI.gif)
If Puerto Rico does step up to first-class citizenship, thru statehood, it should definitely take the U.S. Virgin Islands with it. Much that we decry about Puerto Rico dependency, welfarism, crime, and drug abuse are found in appalling degree in the Virgin Islands too, including, in lesser measure, the divided-mind syndrome. Cars even drive on the left side of the road there! (which has doubtless caused many accidents for mainlanders driving on the island and islanders driving on the mainland).
The Virgin Islands, however, speaks English. Incorporating that territory into a larger State of Puerto Rico would help Puerto Rico adjust to the Nation's de facto dominant language, and afford it a sizable supply of people whose native language is English, as would enable them to serve as translators until enough Puerto Ricans focus on excellence in English to fill all positions in an enlarged island economy and larger world role that require English.
USI would like to see other areas of the Caribbean work for statehood too, either as part of a single Caribbean-wide state or as separate states of size.
For more information about Puerto Rico, see the websites below.
"Somos un grupo de amigos puertorriqueños estadistas pro-Americanos, voluntarios, no afiliados a ningún partido político, sin fines de lucro, colaborando juntos por la democracia Americana, la verdad, la justicia, la libertad individual, la propiedad privada, el libre comercio y un mejor Puerto Rico."We are a group of Puerto Rican friends, statehooders, pro-American, volunteers, not affiliated with any political party, without hopes of profit, collaborating together for American democracy, truth, justice, individual liberty, private property, free trade and a better Puerto Rico.
http://www.estado51.com/
Email: estado51@coqui.net
Estado 51 is a Charter Member of USI.
The New Progressive Party (NPP) (in Spanish, Partido Nuevo Progresista, PNP) is the statehood party of Puerto Rico. Its website, alas, is pretty much wholly in Spanish — and was, curiously, badly out-of-date at February 12, 2001.
The NPP/PNP held two referendums on statehood in its eight most recent years in power, both of which it lost, albeit narrowly, probably because it didn't want to limit the choices of status to statehood and independence. The margin of victory for the present status was very narrow, but Congress has indicated that a margin of victory for statehood would have to be convincing for Congress to make Puerto Rico a state. If you read Spanish, check out their website. If you do not read Spanish, you might ask them to put up on their site an English area of size. Many of the NPP/PNP's leaders speak, read, and write English fluently, so do not hesitate to contact them by email.
http://www.pnp.org/
Email: carlos@pesquera2000.net
The Puerto Rico Herald is a comprehensive statehood site with many links, many news items, etc.:
www.puertorico-herald.org
Email: info@puertorico-herald.org
Puerto Rico 51 is a website ostensibly devoted to promoting statehood. But it apparently feels an obligation to be 'fair' to the enemies of statehood, and so not just links to but actually hosts, on its own site, anti-statehood propaganda.
http://www.puertorico51.org/
Email: (Sam Quirós) webmaster@puertorico51.org
Puerto Rico USA is a website prepared by the Puerto Rico-USA Citizenship Foundation that states plainly that the present political status of Puerto Rico is not permanent, examines the various alternative future statuses, and concludes that the only status certain to secure the U.S. citizenship of Puerto Rican individuals and the firm bond between the island and mainland, permanently into the future, is statehood. Above two animated flags, of the U.S. and Puerto Rico, this site proclaims: "These are both your flags. Love them and defend them both!"
http://www.puertoricousa.com/
Email: prusa@puertoricousa.com
Former Governor Rosselló's website is at http://fortaleza.govpr.org/ingles/pris.htm.
The Expansionist Party of the United States, a Charter Member of USI, has a lengthy pro-statehood presentation on Puerto Rico and the Caribbean that gives some historical background to the issues and seeks to explain, mainly for Americans, what Puerto Rican culture is, and, for Puerto Ricans, which aspects of that culture would and would not be jeopardized by statehood.
Take our poll. There are three polls below. Please be sure to answer the right one. The first poll is for Puerto Ricans who live in Puerto Rico.
This next poll is for Puerto Ricans who live in the United States, NOT in Puerto Rico.
This last poll is for U.S. citizens who are not Puerto Rican.
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