A Field Guide to an American Colony

An Introduction to an American Colony

The American government is the world showcase for democracy as a living, breathing political entity. When over a decade ago, in the summer of 1989, the Chinese students revolted against the Communist dictatorship at Tiananmen Square they built a replica of the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of their struggle for freedom, fairness and democracy. The brave young students called her the Goddess of Democracy. Red Army tanks ran them over while they were defending their ideals. Our Constitution and its Bill of Rights are models for countries far and near as something to aspire to, something to work for, and in case of those students, something to even die for.

Unfortunately in modern day America some citizens are still more equal than others. It is a sad fact that nearly four million citizens of the good old US of A are still caught in a political twilight zone that is more fit for the colonial XIX century than for the XXI one. These Americans are still denied the most basic rights of a truly democratic government. They do not have the right to equal participation in the government that to a great degree makes their laws and controls their destiny.

While the president can put their young ones in harm’s way by drafting them into the Armed Forces they cannot even vote for or against their Commander and Chief. They don’t even have a say or vote in the federal legislature that enacts laws that affects them and they have very little influence in the federal court system that often judges them.

In fact, Puerto Rico has the dubious distinction of being the oldest colony on the face of the planet with over five hundred years, and counting, of uninterrupted colonialism. The first four centuries were under Spanish rule and the last one hundred under American control.

This book is directed at stateside Americans who truly believe in the virtues of democracy, self-government and our wonderful Constitution. It is aimed at those who take to heart the words of the Pledge of Allegiance when it says that America has liberty and justice for all. If you truly believe in the merits of American democracy you should know the story of Puerto Rico for it is the story of a people that has yet to come to terms with itself and a superpower that refuses to live up to its own standards of political decency and fairness.

As its title indicates it’s a field guide, a brief introduction, to the shameful verbal gymnastics that the island-side neo-colonialists, the island media and even federal authorities engage in to keep Puerto Rican colonialism alive. 

This is a dreadful situation that has been dragging along for over a century now and that brings discredit to both the colonizer and the colonized. It undermines America’s credibility all over the world because it highlights Washington’s refusal to bring justice to nearly four million of its very own citizens. So, welcome to the strange world of Puerto Rican political mythology and its moral, political and social consequences.  

Some of the major players in this drama include the following. First we have the three island-side parties. The most powerful political organization in Puerto Rico is the PPD, el Partido Popular Democrático, the Popular Democratic Party. This is the neo-colonialist party that defends the status quo. Nearly fifty years ago it fostered the creation of the Commonwealth and to this day supports it.