The Dilemma in Puerto Rico

...Reacting to a recent poll indicating that the majority of Puerto Ricans would like the right to vote in the U.S...

...There are fine men in it like Luis Ferré, and there are SOBs, but they all distrust Puerto Ricans...

...By blandly declaring that he favors giving Puerto Ricans whatever status they opt for, George Bush has in fact fired up pro-statehood forces, under the dynamic leadership of former Governor Carlos Romero Barceló, to "go for the gold...

...He talks approvingly of the United States letting Puerto Rico decide its status, but goes on to warn that if statehood is chosen then Congress will impose conditions of its own...

...Puerto Ricans have always freely voted for the present status, knowing it has defects...

...On days that are not religious or national holidays (and they seem to be very few), two or three men arrive around 10 in the morning, do a little work, and leave at noon for lunch and a siesta...

...A specific example of what this means has been provided by the renovation of a little park across from the Haitian art gallery (Renaissance 3) my family opened last October in Old San Juan's El Convento Hotel...

...It's an absurdity: 10 per cent of the student body, less than 3 per cent of the electorate, and always declining...

...passports, and Social Security...

...I am disturbed...

...But it can't be a complete success until the economy grows and becomes the servant of what our people want their life to be.' Although the economy has grown, it is debatable whether or not Puerto Ricans are satisfied with the results...

...is a success...

...A highly regarded Star columnist, Alex Maldonado, predicts that in the event of statehood unemployment, currently 15 per cent, would jump to 35 per cent or more...

...I don't agree with those who want to make tourism our number one industry...

...They still quote Senator J. Bennett Johnston Jr., the Louisiana Democrat, who knows Puerto Rico well and a decade ago had the Library of Congress and the General Accounting office do technical studies of how it would have fared as a state...

...it would have received $700 million more in Federal funds, but would have paid $1.3 billion in Federal taxes...

...Dominicans— the boat people escaping to these shores in the hope of exchanging their misery in Hispaniola for Puerto Rican prosperity—threaten to outnumber the indigenous population in a year or two...

...The Statehooders' answer to this—that tax exemptions would be phased out over 20 years—he calls "pure demagogy...

...Munoz' natural pragmatism quickly asserted itself...

...We don't want to become a nation of caterers...

...In 1968 Puerto Rico's most disturbing anxiety was an identity crisis...

...I refuse to be the prisoner of a dichotomy...

...The park has been cordoned off by barbed wire so that its walkways can be repaved and its flower beds edged with brick...

...territory's status...

...He remarked as Munoz went in for a swim: "Luis' career illustrates a truth: Great men in politics weaken a country's morale...

...The Casals Festival, the theater movement, Ricardo Algeria's rehabilitation of Old San Juan and other cultural landmarks, are steps in the right direction...

...Under the Commonwealth they can be neither completely Puerto Rican nor completely American...

...At the end of February the Mayor of Ponce, the island's second largest city, had to make a damaging admission when he avoided bankruptcy by firing 600 administrative workers...

...Bush may feel he has nothing to lose...

...The 2.5 million American voters of Hispanic descent will applaud him, and if the issue wins the President can rest assured that Congress will think twice before going along...

...In this context it is significant, too, that emigration, once very high, is leveling off as Puerto Ricans return to enjoy the tax exemption and the climate...

...Defense, citizenship, immigration, foreign relations, "or other areas essential to permanent union with the United States" would not be affected...

...His son, the Greenwich Village independentista poet, later came home, made friends with Franklin D. Roosevelt's territorial governor, Rexford Guy Tugwell, and embarked upon another course...

...Nevertheless, the idea appeals to the nationalism that burns in every Puerto Rican soul...

...The restoration of Old San Juan that Mufloz envisioned is progressing slowly, albeit with taste and historical authenticity...

...Sometimes they return to put in an hour or two more in the afternoon, sometimes not...

...That's taken for granted—by everyone but a statehooder...

...How...

...Drug-powered crime has spread over the island...

...In fiscal 1987 the Commonwealth government employed 30,000 more people than the next sector, services, and 45,000 more than manufacturing...

...Presidential election, however, Hernandez Colon said he had not entirely ruled out the possibility of statehood...

...Even where the local government could theoretically take over, "tough choices" would have to be made between Federal funds and more home rule...

...A1950 Congressional enactment formalized the arrangement, which was approved in a 1951 plebiscite and went into effect the following year...

...Meanwhile, shops on both sides of the street keep losing business —and hoping...

...And the great and good leader is of course long since dead...

...crime was confined to La Perla, the slum Oscar Lewis made famous...

...Furthermore, unlike most other places, Puerto Rico is a completely open society...

...But," I said, "wouldn't you admit that ultimately Puerto Ricans will have to be independent or a state...

...In marked contrast, the repairmen of the privately-run TV cable company appear exactly when expected and work quickly and efficiently...

...The Statehood Republican Party is a subculture...

...Our mutual friend Roger Baldwin, a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union, was with us...

...No one will hazard a guess as to when the park will be ready for use —if ever...

...At the end of March, 10 months after the project began, half of the brickwork (a generous estimate) had been completed...

...Under statehood, with a crackdown on immigration to counter the inevitable surge in unemployment—not to mention U.S...

...The Democrats would no doubt like to see their ranks swelled by two new Senators and a handful of Representatives, yet they probably would be leery about admitting to the Union a 51st state with a population density in excess of any other, and a per capita income level lower than Mississippi's...

...in those instances where they seem to succeed, the phone is frequently out of order again in a few weeks or even days...

...The combined Federal and local tax burden on Puerto Ricans would be higher than the U.S...

...A limited success," he answered guardedly...

...Statehood—despite much popular support according to the latest polls—is as far from reality as it has always been...

...Munoz himself was an independentista when he wrote poems in Greenwich Village before World War II...

...Old San Juan was beginning to take shape as Latin America's antiquarian showcase...

...How can they even think of taking American citizenship away from a single Puerto Rican...

...The illegitimate child of a wealthy white Spaniard and a mulatto-Indian mother, Albizu was already launched on his desperate career of conspiracy, political murder and Marxism...

...Ties to the U.S...

...Incredibly, every time the phone goes dead the subscriber must pay for another service call...

...This would not involve any sweeping or fundamental changes in Puerto Rico's present status, he says...

...Indeed, because of the economic consequences, it is estimated that no more than 3-5 per cent of the people will vote for independence in a new plebiscite tentatively scheduled to be held next year...

...He then devised the ingenious program of limited autonomy with close economic ties to the United States...

...Yet the price of a true identity—of choosing either statehood or independence—may be more than they are willing to pay...

...Only a few diehard independentistas speak seriously about cutting the lifeline that brings tax-free oil for the island's generators, hordes of visitors are disgorged by 10 luxury cruise ships every week, and a thousand-and-one goodies that have the supermarkets, warehouses and gift shops bulging...

...Run by the government, the company is notorious for making appointments that are not kept...

...Why should an American citizen have to boast of his allegiance...

...Later, as his Operation Bootstrap advanced, he suffered agonies of shame when Latin America's premier poet, Pablo Neruda, called him a puppet manipulated by American strings...

...Without the incentives of the tax-exemptions available to the Commonwealth, many businesses would not find operation profitable in Puerto Rico because of the huge cost of importing raw materials...

...The Condado Beach tourist strip that he also set in motion, and that gave the poet in him nightmares, rivals Miami Beach in its activity and vulgarity...

...Puerto Ricans were not sure who they were...

...If the Nationalist Party had not at that time succumbed to the fanatical leadership of Pedro Albizu Campos, a different situation might have developed...

...When Munoz rejoined us on the beach, I asked him once more if he was disturbed by what American tourism was doing to Puerto Rico...

...Advocates of retaining the island's commonweath designation have also been quick to spell out the disadvantages of statehood in the press—especially in the Englishlanguage daily, the San Juan Star, perhaps the island's most intelligent newspaper...

...Of the 5 million who fly in and out annually, only 500,000 are tourists...

...We invented a third way in 1940, and a third way can be found again...

...The recent plebiscite, beginning to favor statehood, was a contest between labels and reality...

...Newly elected Governor Rafael Hernandez Colon, while vociferously proCommonwealth in his campaign, surprised everyone by asking for a plebiscite in his inaugural address January 2. He now talks about an "Enhanced Commonwealth" as the island's best choice...

...Culture," always the demagogic rallying cry of the Independence Party, had created nothing that was internationally recognized in science, literature or the arts by 1968— and with the exception of four or five first-rate painters (unrecognized abroad), it still hasn't...

...Statehood, Senator Johnston added, would force the island government to impose a sales tax and greatly increase property taxes...

...We will provide the same services, " he said...

...Selden Rodman is a longtime NL contributor...

...That would have brought about an 8 per cent drop in the island's GNP...

...average...

...Now I am back in Puerto Rico for another three-month stay...

...CHOOSING AN IDENTITY The Dilemma in Puerto Rico By Selden Rodman San Juan When I made ray first threemonth visit to Puerto Rico a generation ago, the advocates of statehood had just won 39 per cent of the vote in a plebiscite on the U.S...

...and former Governor Luis Munoz Marin—the island's national hero, for whom the international airport has been named—was still talking enthusiastically about Puerto Rico's past, present and future...

...He was indeed...

...In 1973 Puerto Rico would have suffered a net income loss of $600 million...

...It's undignified, this 100 per cent Americanism—and it creates a natural reaction of suspicion...

...But Operation Bootstrap, the Commonwealth's self-help economic phase, was being followed by Operation Serenity, Munoz told me...

...By demanding this artificial expression of loyalty to the United States...

...Today, enjoying a prosperity that is the envy of others in the Caribbean, they are less sure than ever...

...His latest book is Where Art Is Joy: Haitian Art—The First Forty Years...

...Luis Munoz Rivera—Munoz Marin's father, sometimes called Puerto Rico's George Washington—had turned his Autonomists into Federals and campaigned for statehood...

...Statehood is a possibility, but it implies imposing a limitation on people's economy, and it constitutes a distrust of their creative capacity to find a native solution...

...I asked him what he thought the independence movement had to offer...

...This is the difference between being creative and non-creative...

...Statehooders want Spanish to be the official language, for example, and Congress has already insisted in Spanish-speaking areas of the United States that English be the language taught in the schools and used for official business...

...The San Juan Star publishes more letters from readers complaining about Puerto Rico's telephone company than about any other subject...

...No...

...have made them materially better of f than any other people in Latin America, but less certain about what being Puerto Rican means...

...By 1979 Puerto Rico's income would have suffered a net loss of $ 1.1 billion...

...In my 1968 beachside talk with the 70-year-old Munoz, who had brought Puerto Rico into the industrial age and the modern world, I asked him whether he was disturbed by the impact American commercialism and cultural vulgarity was already having on Puerto Rico...

...Some people actually believe," he says mockingly, "we are going to take away food stamps, U.S...

...Never in history," he said with devastating wit, "has one leader exercised so strong an influence over so few people...

...So it is not surprising, in the light of the forthcoming vote, that the Statehood option has monopolized Puerto Rico's press for the past several months...

...The idea of creating a commonwealth out of the territory ceded by Spain to the United States in 1898 took root during the New Deal...

...To put it another way, of the individuals working in Puerto Rico, one out of four works for the government...

...On the other hand, Puerto Rico's enormously bloated, inefficient bureaucracy is a strong argument against its continuing as a commonwealth...

...People stay home from work day after day waiting for repairmen who never show up...

...When they do, they are often unable to fix what is wrong...

...Operation Serenity...

...And he did...

...immigration quotas— where would they go...