The recent GOP intelligentsia strategy to curry favor for Latino votes via support for Puerto Rican Statehood while opposing immigration reform is misguided, misinformed, and probably disingenuous.
Such propaganda-in cahoots with Puerto Rico's Governor Luis Fortuño-looks to this very Republican politician to solve a very Republican problem: the spreading perception among U.S. Latinos as a whole that the Republican Party is dominated by an opposition to immigration reform so virulent that it could only be interpreted as racist and xenophobic.
That nearly 45 percent of the Latino vote is required to win a presidential election has some Republicans rightly quaking in their boots, especially with mid-term elections coming up and Latinos widely mobilized by the draconian immigrant profiling law in Arizona.
Apparently Gov. Fortuño, a new Republican Party darling with Palin-esque ambitions, has been selling the GOP on supporting Statehood for Puerto Rico to compensate for the party's refusal to back immigration reform --an attempt to curry favor with the 30 million plus Mexican-Americans for whom this is the most important issue. To sweeten the deal for the GOP, Fortuño has professed that he can deliver the Puerto Rico electorate--larger than that of 24 other states--to the Republican Party in the event that Puerto Rico become a 51st state.
Such a ploy reveals the Republican Party's ignorance about the political culture in Puerto Rico, as well as a disconnect with Latino voters of all stripes, homogenizing them around an issue that they may not know or care much about. It also reveals just how desperate some Republican leaders are to bank on a governor presiding over the biggest economic debacle on the island, possibly since the 1930s.
"Fortuño may appear to be young and with a future, but Republicans are taking a big risk," said Angelo Falcón, President of the National Institute for Latino Policy, a New York-based, non-partisan, non-profit policy center focusing on Latino issues. "The party doesn't know what kind of problems Fortuño could have; Puerto Rico may become explosive, as tensions there now can be cut with a knife," he added, referring to a melee at the Capitol building there June 30, in which police attacked and tear-gassed hundreds of peaceful demonstrators, injuring dozens. "Of course this didn't start with Fortuño, but his policies are clearly making it worse."
Those policies demonstrate an agenda that is more than fiscal, aimed at perceived sectors of opposition, including drastic austerity measures against the working and middle classes with massive layoffs from the public sector, as well as crippling budget cuts to government agencies charged with social services, arts and culture.
The administration has also stacked the courts, tried to dismantle the bar association, passed repressive laws, and periodically barred the public from the legislative process. Cuts to the University of Puerto Rico, the country's premier institution of public higher education with nearly 65,000 students, have been so severe as to prompt a two-month student strike in April, amid widespread fears that the University will be dismantled and taken over by private interests.
No wonder Newt Gingrich and Fox News are now fawning over Fortuño. Yet making Fortuño their lap dog may hardly register with most Puerto Ricans on the island who have little knowledge of the Republican Party, or of Fortuño's affiliation with it. Far from being a Republican endorsement, Fortuño's dramatic electoral victory last November, giving the right-wing flank of the Pro-Statehood party decisive control of Puerto Rico's House and Senate, was no more than voters punishing the previous party in power during an economic crisis.
Local news polls have already indicated Fortuño's support has drastically deteriorated, including among those who voted for him, and some members of his party are already publicly distancing themselves.
"It's all about local politics," said Edwin Meléndez, an economist from Puerto Rico and Director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College in New York. "One cannot count on a vote for Fortuño as a vote for Statehood, much less for the Republican Party," he said, adding that the previous administration was perceived badly, and so they got booted out of office.
In fact Fortuño's running mate, Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi, Puerto Rico's non-voting representative in the U.S. Congress, is a Democrat who supported President Obama. And the two previous right wing Pro-Statehood governors in Puerto Rico, Pedro Rosselló and Carlos Romero Barceló, are also Democrats.
Another hard sell suggests that the majority of Puerto Ricans on the island, being social conservatives and devout Christians, could be moved to vote Republican by such hot-button issues as abortion and same-sex marriage in the event of Statehood.
Yet the correlation between harboring such views, and acting on them through voting, or even in personal practice due to other influencing factors, has never been made conclusive, agreed Jon O'Brien, President of Catholics for Choice, a leading pro-choice organization from a standpoint of culture, faith and morality, in Washington, D.C.
While the Republican Party has made some inroads into the Latino electorate with socially conservative issues, these gains could be overridden by a bigger issue such as immigration reform, and erosion has already occurred to that end, according to Nativo V. López, National President of the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA), the oldest political organization of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the United States, based in Los Angeles.
The Latino demand for immigration reform has gained so much traction that evangelical Christian leaders this week publicly allied themselves with President Obama on the issue, including a path to legalization for the nearly 12 million undocumented workers in the country.
Moved by increasingly diverse constituents, white evangelical leaders may otherwise face dwindling support among their growing flocks of Latino parishioners, though pressure is also being exerted by Latino church leaders.
"There is a movement within these denominations," said the Rev. Samuel Cruz, a professor at Union Theological Seminary and the pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, where he leads a culturally-mixed congregation of second and third generation Norwegians and diverse Latinos, who he explains are socially conservative in lifestyle but progressive on immigrant, gay and women's rights. "White evangelical leaders are being pressured by Latino leaders within the church who are saying we will no longer support you on gay marriage if you don't support us on immigration."
Coalition building between Latino groups is intensifying around immigration reform, but not around Puerto Rican Statehood. While increasingly diverse organizations historically affiliated with Puerto Ricans, such as Hispanic Federation in New York and Latino Leadership Alliance of New Jersey, have placed immigration reform high on their agendas, the reverse does not hold regarding Puerto Rican Statehood for Mexican-American organizations and individuals, who on the whole do not know much about Puerto Rico, Cuba or the Dominican Republic, noted MAPA's López.
"Appealing to Mexican-Americans via support for Puerto Rican Statehood only demonstrates ignorance about the diversity of Latino groups, not just between them but within them, such as generational shifts," said López, adding that Democratic Party leadership is also guilty of this.
All key Puerto Rican civil rights groups have forcefully opposed the Arizona profiling law as part of broad Latino coalitions, said Clarissa Martínez De Castro, Director of Immigration and National Campaigns for the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the largest Latino civil rights organization in the U.S., now pan-Hispanic. Puerto Rican Statehood, however, is seen as an issue that must be deferred to the Puerto Rican community to decide, she added.
While economy, jobs, education remain primary, the tone of the debate over immigration "touches a nerve, because it's about respect," she said, and all Latinos, regardless of citizenship or immigration status, bear the brunt of civil rights violations when the rhetoric gets ugly. The history of harassment due to immigration affects Puerto Ricans, even though Puerto Ricans were granted U.S. citizenship in 1917 (in time to draft them into World War I).
It doesn't help that mass media, including Spanish-language television, neglects to adequately cover Puerto Rico, despite the fact that as the second largest Latino group, Puerto Ricans number more than 4 million, with 800,000 in New York and growing numbers in Central Florida, making up nine percent of the U.S. Latino population (not counting the additional 4 million in Puerto Rico). Mexican-Americans comprise 66 percent, by far the largest group.
It is doubtful a majority of Puerto Ricans will approve Statehood anyway, as they opted not to in three plebiscites from 1967 to 1998, and are fiercely attached to their international sports teams and beauty pageant contestants, as well as to Spanish.
Though Republican-Democrat is not an operative paradigm there, political scientists perceive Puerto Rico as more Democrat-friendly in part because of economic hardship, with unemployment at 17 percent and about 49 percent living below the poverty line. Finally, broad core Republican support for Statehood is as unlikely as their backing immigration reform, commented Meléndez, "because it's the same Spanish speaking, brown faces."
The very idea of Puerto Rican Statehood being touted as appealing only insofar as it can temporarily boost Latino support for Republicans certainly indicates how incompatible that may be as a solution to finally ending U.S. colonialism there.
Based on fiscal realities rather than party politics, Puerto Rico's conservative GOP Governor, Luis Fortuño, cut debt-financed local government spending and bloated public employee rolls. Public employee unions and the far left are demanding exemptions from reforms, disrupting public schools and blaming Fortuño.
A July 21 Huffington Post article by local territorial activist Maritza Stanchich escalates the attack on Fortuño, arguing that GOP support for federal Puerto Rico self-determination measures espoused by Fortuño will backfire and fail to attract Hispanic votes nationwide. The Stanchich analysis glosses over the Democratic Party's even more blatant pandering for the votes of Puerto Ricans in the mainland.
In swing states like Florida the Puerto Rico vote in federal elections increasingly has favored the GOP, while in some races the Democratic Party still enjoys an advantage in older Puerto Rican enclaves. Puerto Ricans are a demographic in play, which is one reason why the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives and a handful of forward thinking Republicans just passed a political status referendum bill for Puerto Rico.
While it would be naive to think the political parties will do what is right for Puerto Rico without looking for partisan advantage, it's cynical and runs against the long history of territorial status resolution to assert that Congress will not find enough bipartisan common ground to do what is right for America. Fortuño is on the right side of that history.
If you were to pander to puerto ricans at the expense of mexicans there would be an electoral backlash for it. I have no doubt.
So the tactical question would be do you have enough puerto ricans and cubans in florida a key swing state that pandering to them can help you nationally even if it might hurt you in other regions.
Puerto Ricans don't care about having any representation at the federal level, nor do they have to pay federal income taxes. The Popular Democratic Party has been in power since I can remember from my days living in Puerto Rico as a kid. Puerto Ricans will stand united with their Mexican and other latino cousins on immigration reform. Any republican who thinks they can 'snooker' the Puerto Rican electorate is in for a rude awakening.
I'm sure it has changed dramatically since then.
I am a native and have not been there in a similar amount of time, though I was hardly college-age when I left. I would be curious to see it again someday.
I would only add that the GOP—and US Americans generally—need not interfere with Puerto Rico's political situation. [And if they recruit Fortuño away from PR in the process, GREAT! I trust Latinos and other People of Color there will promptly deal with him.] What folks in the US should do, however, is push to end 112 years of US colonial occupation and control here. Right about NOW would be a good time!
Dr. Raúl Quiñones-Rosado
I want statehood (or independence) and I'm Puerto Rican, so your argument is severely flawed. Not to mention, you're conveniently forgetting than more than 48% of the electorate has already chosen statehood as an option. No hay peor ciego que el que no quiere ver. Y es bien triste.
And American colonialism should end. It is my contension that we should close the bases we have in other nations and cut the defence budget.
As far as "Comprehensive Reform" the Republicans contend that we should secure the border first and the Democrats say we should legalize 12 million or more unregistered foriegners.
Neither is realistic.
Lacking Mexico's assistance, we cannot secure the border except by massive military force.
Americans mostly feel that we should be careful about who we share citizenship with. Giving it willy-nilly to millions of foriegn nationals who show up and demand it is not something they tend to agree with.
There are many issues besides those that need to be dealt with in immigration. But they are the ones causing the deadlock and our history provides many good reasons why that is the case.
Maybe you should send copies of your article to all the Senators and Representatives in DC, from both parties - they will benefit from your insights.