Puerto Rico is in the dark and under water.
Five years to the day after Hurricane María became the worst natural disaster in Puerto Rico’s history, Hurricane Fiona has left catastrophic flooding in its wake and caused a total blackout. Rivers overflowed, bridges collapsed, and people were desperately rescued from the rising waters.
For those of us who lived through Hurricane María, it was the worst Groundhog Day ever. And, online, there was another element to the déjà vu: a chorus of well-meaning Americans asserting that it would all be so much better if Puerto Rico were a state.
Problem is: they don’t really mean it; or, if they do, they’re not willing to do a damn thing about it. Which is worse.
After María: American Inaction
We’ve seen this movie before. In 2017, after Hurricane María, Americans wrung their hands about Puerto Rico—mostly about Trump throwing paper towels, but also about how the island never would’ve been treated so poorly if it were a state. (Which, if you know a thing or two about New Orleans after Katrina, or the water crises in Flint and Jackson, is a slightly dubious proposition, but let’s stipulate it.)
Three years later, statehood won a majority of votes in a 2020 Puerto Rican plebiscite. In the U.S., Democrats won the presidency and both chambers of Congress. A statehood bill was introduced. Then *another* bill to address Puerto Rico’s status. A historic "compromise" bill followed. It was the best political environment—ever—for statehood.
And... nothing happened. For a lot of complicated reasons and for a lot of simple ones, but this is one of the latter: when it was actually on the table, when it actually could've mattered, concern and outrage from Americans over Puerto Rico's colonial status was nowhere to be found. In fact, most Americans probably had no idea that *anything* related to Puerto Rico was happening. And without pressure or action from their constituents, Congress did what they’ve done for decades on this issue: they punted.
So what, exactly, am I supposed to believe is going to happen now? If Hurricane María, 3,000+ deaths and all, didn't move Americans to action on Puerto Rico's status, what are the chances this comparatively smaller-scale disaster will awaken a dormant desire to call Mitch McConnell’s office and talk about Puerto Rico?
It’s Time For a Little More Honesty
The United States has refused to make Puerto Rico a state for the past 125 years. For the past 10, it has outright denied Puerto Ricans statehood despite the option winning thrice (sort of) at the polls. In all that time, post-disaster tweets aside, Americans have remained largely unconcerned about this shameful state of affairs. They will tell me, probably in the comments to this very article, that they are not; that it’s just so hard to get anything done in Congress these days!
But this isn’t an issue like immigration reform, climate action, or gun control, where massive popular support and years-long advocacy has run up against the brick wall of Congressional obstructionism. This is an issue on which Americans have never really tried at all.
Americans should be honest with Puerto Ricans, but most of all with themselves, that Puerto Rico will never rank high enough on their list of priorities to spur meaningful political action. At the very least, certainly not the level of action that would make a dent in an all-but-broken Congress, or on extraordinary GOP opposition to Puerto Rican statehood.
They must understand, once and for all, that however well-intentioned their desire for Puerto Rico to join the union, they are implicitly asking Puerto Ricans to remain colonial subjects until the political winds in the U.S. blow just right. And that they are complicit in that continued colonization as long as they remain unwilling to pick up an oar.
Decolonization Is a Moral Imperative
Whether statehood, even if it were politically viable in the U.S., would be the answer to all of Puerto Rico’s problems is debatable. But the fact that the colonial status quo is at the heart of many of Puerto Rico’s problems is undeniable. The United States invaded Puerto Rico more than a century ago for the purposes of imperial expansion. Americans have a political responsibility to decolonize that goes beyond merely asking what Puerto Ricans want and pretending that their government will heed the answer.
As long as statehood remains a nonstarter, it may be a moral imperative for Americans to support the other legitimate option: independence. That would not mean abandoning or forsaking Puerto Ricans, or denying us inclusion in the great American family. It would be a liberatory act worthy of a country that venerates its own pro-independence Founding Fathers. It would right a longstanding historical injustice. And it would grant Puerto Rico a different kind of equality by allowing it to join the family of sovereign nations that nearly ever other people in the world belong to.
If nothing else, it might be only thing that has a shot in hell of actually happening.
Thanks for reading. You can check out more of my writing on Puerto Rico here.