The struggle to get rid of the US Navy in Vieques gripped the Puerto Rican communities in the US as well as in Puerto Rico like no other issue has in recent times.This struggle showed the connections of the Puerto Rican communities in the United States with the Puerto Rican nation in Puerto Rico. In Puerto Rico, the struggle around Vieques involved people from all sectors, classes and political viewpoints except for the most sold-out right-wing annexationist elements who deny the reality of a Puerto Rican nation and bend over backwards for US imperialism.
Let me remind the reader that that struggle came on the heels of mass actions affirming Puerto Rican nationality, Spanish as the national language, and one of the first fights against neoliberalism in Latin America – the fight (which included a two-day general strike) against the privatization of the phone company. The struggle to rid Vieques of the US Navy had its reflection in the US. It was a fight for the people’s health, for peace, objectively against imperialism and, most importantly, for the national aspirations of the Puerto Rican people, both in Puerto Rico and in the US. Unfortunately, too few forces within the US who are active in the fight for peace and against imperialism saw the fight for Vieques as their fight too.
The unity around Vieques brought together many in the US Puerto Rican communities together. That struggle formed the impetus to develop a national progressive Puerto Rican agenda in the US. Oftentimes, the struggle for Vieques in the US Puerto Rican communities was led, as had been the case in Puerto Rico for decades, by the patriotic, pro-independence forces, albeit, it included Puerto Ricans from almost the whole spectrum of political thought.
The new movement for a new progressive Puerto Rican national agenda, which came out of the movement around Vieques, is also led by this political tendency. In many ways the progressive Puerto Rican national agenda also counters the movement of the Puerto Rican annexationists, which seeks to build support among US Latin Americans to make Puerto Rico part of the US as a state. The leadership of this sector denies that Puerto Ricans constitute a nation, separate and apart from the US nation. They regard Puerto Ricans as just one more ethnicity within the US nation. This runs counter to the sentiments of the overwhelming majority of Puerto Ricans, both in Puerto Rico and the US.
As Ida Castro, former head of the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under the Clinton administration said 'For 100 years they have tried to make us something we are not,' that is to say, of US nationality and not Puerto Rican. The Puerto Rican annexationists (or statehooders as they like to be called) have been rebuffed time and time again when they have proposed formulas which deny Puerto Rican nationality.
When the annexationist New Progressive Party Governor Pedro Rosselló changed the official language of Puerto Rico from Spanish to Spanish and English, this led to massive demonstrations in defense of Spanish. The previous government had changed the official language from Spanish and English to Spanish only. A poll taken a few years ago in Puerto Rico found that 66 percent would not use English even if it was for communicating with federal government agencies, while another 14 percent would use it grudgingly. Only about 25 percent of Puerto Ricans claim to speak English fluently.
When that same colonial governor Rosselló stated publicly that Puerto Ricans don’t constitute a nation, at least 100,000 took part in two demonstrations 'In Defence of the Nation' during the annual meeting of the US Southern Governors Association, to which the heads of state of the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Honduras were invited. Then there was the 48-hour general strike, which included a march of 100,000, against the privatization of the telephone company, one of the first fights against neoliberal economic policies in Latin America, which shut down the whole country and was seen as a fight 'for our national patrimony.'
The annexationist forces are attempting to build a consensus in the US within the Democratic Party (most of the annexationist leaders in Puerto Rico identify with the GOP, something which is not the case with the grassroots annexationists) and other US Latin Americans, especially Mexican-Americans. According to Northeastern University professor, Amílcar Barreto, and Puerto Rican Legal Defence and Educational Fund leader, Ángelo Falcón, the Roselló government began 'initiatives to reach out to Mexican Americans and Cuban organizations'in the US. This was done without involving Puerto Ricans in the US. One of the organizations which the annexationists have used for this purpose is the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), a mostly Mexican-American grouping. The Roselló government organized 116 LULAC chapters illegally using government funds and employees for the purpose of influencing the Mexican American people.
The annexationists have stolen the language of the left and progressive forces and frame their anti-Puerto Rican positions in terms of self-determination and civil rights 'for the four million American citizens in Puerto Rico.' The Roselló government has been 'attacking the Puerto Rican leadership' in the US, even going to the extent of threathening representatives Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL) and Nydia Velásquez (D-NY), both opponents of statehood for Puerto Rico.
This program and actions of the Puerto Rican right makes it imperative that the left, including Communists, in the US Puerto Rican communities take an active part in the development of, and fighting for, what was stressed as the building of a progessive Puerto Rican agenda. It is also imperative that the Puerto Rican left reach out to other sections, not just Latinos, of the US population on its agenda.
The developing of 'a progressive Puerto Rican national agenda to inject into the national debate' at this particular point, when we are in the midst of election campaigns with a people’s movement to oust the right, could be seen with continuous calls to get the Puerto Rican vote out. The left character – a left character that is not out of the mainstream thinking – could be seen in having a demand to end the war and occupation in Iraq as one of the three main demands.
The Boricua Roundtable presenting a left-of-center agenda, with the participation of Puerto Rican elected officials including the three members of Congress, is all the more important taking into account the demographic changes in the US Puerto Rican population. This Puerto Rican agenda has the purpose, not only of putting forth issues that relate only to the Puerto Rican communities, but it is designed 'to provide a framework for stateside Boricuas to participate in a broader Latino Agenda.' Congressman Gutiérrez spoke to this when he called on all Puerto Rican elected officials and activists to be known by their work as champion of immigrants.
While Puerto Ricans are concentrated mainly in the northeast with other areas and cities, the 2000 census shows a shifting in where Puerto Ricans live, making them a more powerful force to reckon with politically. First of all the Puerto Rican population grew by 25 percent between the 1990 and the 2000 censuses. Because of immigration from other Latin Americans, the relative size of the Puerto Rican community shrunk from 12 percent to just under 10 percent. All other Latin American groups grew faster than the Puerto Rican population, except for Cubans.
The number of Puerto Ricans in the US is almost equal to those in Puerto Rico (3.4 million to 3.6 million).
New York, especially New York City, is still the most important area of Puerto Rican concentration, movement and political power. It is there were they have made an impact in the trade union movement, in the fight for bilingual education, and political power generally. It is worth noting that Puerto Ricans were a powerful component of the forces that elected Vito Marcantonio, progressive congressman from New York, two years before the election of NY state Assembly member Oscar García Rivera, the first Puerto Rican elected to a public office in the US.
New York City, which once could boast having 80 percent of the US Puerto Rican population, now has 30 percent, a smaller amount but, the largest of any city in the country. Every borough in the city has had a decline in its Puerto Rican population, except for Staten Island and Queens. The state of New York, however, is the only state with a decline in the absolute number of Puerto Ricans.
Of the top 11 cities with the highest Puerto Rican population, five had less Puerto Ricans now than 10 years earlier. These are New York, Chicago, and in New Jersey, Newark, Paterson and Jersey City. While a good number of these have resettled in other areas of the country, many have also returned to Puerto Rico. For example, it is estimated that 38 percent of Puerto Ricans have left New York City to return to the island.
New Jersey, where many Puerto Ricans moved to from New York City in search of better conditions was for a long time the state with the second highest Puerto Rican population. That place is now occupied by Florida with New Jersey losing Puerto Ricans. Nevertheless, the New Jersey Puerto Rican population grew by 14 percent. Florida is the state with the highest relative growth of Puerto Ricans (95 percent). Other states with high relative growth among Puerto Ricans are Texas with 62 percent, and Pennsylvania with 53 percent.
For the people’s movement the Puerto Rican growth in Florida is very important, especially in elections for public office. The 2000 census shows 833,000 Cubans in Florida and 482,000 Puerto Ricans. All the Puerto Ricans are US citizens while not all the Cubans are citizens. Over 300,000 are in the Orlando area alone.
The Puerto Rican Federal Affairs Admnistration, which represents the government of Puerto Rico and has 12 regional offices throughout the US has registered 250,000 new Latino voters, mostly Puerto Ricans. Of these the bulk (100,000) were in New York state. In Florida they registered about 12,000, mostly in the Orlando and Tampa areas.
A major problem is that Puerto Ricans, like many groups of immigrants, come into the US but don’t neccessarily get involved in electoral politics. While in Puerto Rico 95 percent of eligible voters are registered and up to 85 percent participate in the electoral process, in the US, both the voter registration rate and the voter participation rate fall to 40 percent. This means that only 16 percent of voting-age Puerto Ricans make use of the franchise in the US. This is a challenge to the left and progressive forces in the US seeing that Puerto Ricans when mobilized come out on the side of social progress. This challenge is even more important in the election year 2004, when the people’s forces are mobilizing to defeat the right-wing Republicans in the White House and Congress.
--Jose Cruz is editor of Nuestro Mundo.
