Additionally while media is rightfully honing in on voter suppression efforts across the country and pushback against these efforts, little attention is paid to the fact that Puerto Rican citizens on the island have no vote in the U.S. presidential election, nor Congressional representation yet are subject to U.S. law. There has been buzz about how this year’s plebiscite is allegedly different from those of years past because of the wording of the option and a two step process, but not much discussion on how no matter how the vote turns out, a Congressional bill would have to be introduced to Congress to change the island’s status. Not one article or post I have seen has mentioned the numerous hearings before the United Nations Decolonization Committee and that committee’s recommendations. There also has been hardly any noise heard within the U.S. media about allegations of electoral fraud within the island. Just like during the 2008 presidential campaign, this year both candidates have made much ado about the influence of the Latino vote by campaigning in Puerto Rico and the media has focused on the participation numbers of voters on the island in the primaries there.

spittingonhegel:

Western hegemony in Greece, compounded by its post-colonial condition, has rendered it continentless. That is, geopolitically, it belongs nowhere. It geographically belongs to Europe by arbitrary cartographic demarcation, but not culturally, socially or politically in the sense that Eastern European countries are said to belong to Europe in the subordinate sense. Greeks have no identity to share. They belong neither to the Middle East, nor to Asia, nor to Europe. Their interstitial condition marks and underlines the profound ambivalence of their identity, since a present was refused to them, a cultural present, has always already been precluded. As an ‘other’ we are constructed as a kitsch of a past never studied or reclaimed by us, but rather by the West. Thus the need to constantly cling to it, the anxiety to identify with it. The lost Greeks of Anatolia, where would they be situated today if they weren’t wiped off the face of the earth? How would they identify and be identified? These aporias keep me up at night. 

Tal crisis identaria sucede con mi islita encadenada, aún años después.

(vía spittingonhegel-deactivated2013)

The Spanish men left babies right and left. When most of the indias had given birth to mixed-blood children, when all the lands had been divided, our labor shared out in the encomienda, and no more caciques went out to battle them, they said the people were gone. How could we be gone? We were the brown and olive and cream-colored children of our mothers: Arawak, Maya, Lucaya, stolen women from all the shores of the sea. When we cooked, it was the food our mothers had always given us. We still pounded yuca and caught crabs. We still seasoned our stews with ají and wore cotton skirts. When we burned their fields, stole their cattle, set fire to their boats, they said we were someone else. What was wrong with their eyes? We mixed our blood together like sancocho and calalú. But the mother things stayed with us.

A timeline of the shit the USA has done to Puerto Rico.

jasjuliet | athenasdespair:

July 25, 1898 — United States invades Puerto Rico through Guánica

1917 — Puerto Ricans just happen to get their American citizenship the same time the United States joins WWI. As a big coincidence, many Puerto Ricans got sent to fight in the war. 

1931 — Dr. Cornelius P. Rhoads injected Puerto Ricans with cancer cells. Suspicions came after he wrote this letter:

“The Porto Ricans (sic) are the dirtiest, laziest, most degenerate and thievish race of men ever to inhabit this sphere. They are even lower than the Italians. I have done my best to further the process of extermination by killing off eight and transplanting cancer into several more… All physicians take delight in the abuse and torture of the unfortunate subjects.”

Of course, Rhoads dismissed the letter as “just a joke” and no one found evidence of Rhoads killing the Puerto Ricans.

October 24, 1935 — La Masacre de Río Piedras (The Río Piedras Massacre): Colonel E. Francis Riggs commanded this attack against innocent Nationalist Party members in the University of Puerto Rico. Four Nationalist Party members died and and a police officer wounded.

1936 — Hiram Rosado and Elias Beauchamp assassinate colonel Riggs. Imprisoned and executed without trial. 

April 3, 1936 — Pedro Albizu Campos (the biggest independence supporter in our history) and many other Nationalist party members are accused of sedition by the Federal Grand Jury. Albizu Campos was released in 1947. 

March 21, 1937 — La Masacre de Ponce (The Massacre of Ponce): The Nationalist Party organized a march to commemorate the abolition of slavery in 1873 and to protest the imprisonment of Pedro Albizu Campos. They were exiting church, and as they were singing our national anthem, the Insular Police start shooting at the innocent civilians under the command of what was then an American-run government. 237 unarmed civilians were wounded amongst them women and children, 2 policemen were killed, and 18 unarmed civilians were murdered, amongst them a 7-year-old girl. One of the most famous images of this account was the inscription written on the wall with the blood of a victim: “¡Viva la república! ¡Abajo los asesinos!” (“Long live the republic! Down with the murderers!”)

1941 — The United States Navy starts using Vieques as a bombing test ground. 

May 21, 1948 — “La Ley de la mordaza” (“The Gag Law”): Though written by our own Luis Muñoz Marín, who at first supported our independence but later on betrayed us, it was obvious that United States approved this law. This law forbade that anyone show the Puerto Rican flag, sing the national anthem, speak or write about our independence, or hold any meeting having to do with our political status. 

1950’s-60’s — The Searle company used our Puerto Rican women as guinea pigs to test birth control pills. All of them were poor women who needed money and homes, and were promised to have those things if they participated in the testing program. 56 of the 176 women that applied were accepted into be given a home. Dr. Rice-Wray, who was one of the people that was in charge in all of this, wrote to another doctor in 1956: “We have had problems with some patients that have stopped taking the pill. In a few cases they have had nausea, vertigo, headaches, and vomiting. These few have refused to continue on with the program. Two have been sterilised. One husband hung himself, desperate because of his poverty.” Read more about this here. 

Also, Agent Orange was tested here, causing huge ecological damage. It is also rumoured that it is the cause of some illnesses in some towns in Puerto Rico. Here are the exact places they sprayed Agent Orange (Scroll down a bit to get to Puerto Rico). 

1960’s — The residents of Vieques start protesting the Navy testing bombs in their lands. 

1975 — The United States says that they’ll leave Vieques, but they just go “lol suckers we aint leavin”

1981 — Oscar López Rivera is accused of sedition and is sentenced 70 years in jail (and we have many more political prisoners). 

1994 — The United States Department of Energy admits to have run experiments on Puerto Ricans during the 50’s and 70’s, and that Pedro Albizu Campos was probably one of subjects (And honey, there were many other types of sick experiments that the U.S. did to us, but the list is getting too long).

1999 — The shit hits the fan. While the planes were testing out bombs, they kill a civil guard named David Sanes Rodríguez. You thought the Puerto Ricans weren’t pissed before? Now they are. 

Richard Danzing, secretary of the Navy, gives out an apology, but Puerto Ricans ain’t eating his bullshit.

It is also found out the the cancer rate amongst Vieques residents is incredibly high. The Armada admits throwing over 267 grenades filled with Uranium in Vieques.

AND LOTS OF OTHER SHIT HAPPENED IN 1999 REGARDING VIEQUES. Go here. (Google translate that shit if you don’t speak Spanish.)

May 1, 2003 — The U.S. Navy finally hauls its ass out of Vieques.

September 23, 2005 — The FBI murders Filiberto Ojeda, leader of Los Macheteros. Los Macheteros were a clandestine paramilitary organization that considered United States rule over Puerto Rico oppressive, and desired liberty. Los Macheteros were also in charge of one the biggest cash heists in U.S. history. They stole 7 million dollars off a Wells Fargo depot September 12, 1983, and gave the money to the poor communities of Puerto Rico. Filiberto Ojeda was shot by the FBI, and left to bleed. The FBI also did not inform our Government about this operation, and basically the FBI did such a big mistake that even the statists were calling them out on their bullshit.

Now tell me, does it LOOK like the United States is going to accept us as the 51st state? Tumblr, stop spreading around that Puerto Rico is going to become the 51st state, because it’s not. 

We’ll always be a colony to Congress. US Imperialism is still around, friends. This is also a special shout out to those who say Puerto Rico should kiss arse and be grateful for the US’ involvement in our country. While I do admire certain aspects of the United States Government, and recognize many policies have helped PR along, I also believe that we haven’t been able to move forward BECAUSE of the issue of our status. 

This isn’t obscure history. We learned this in elementary school alongside our US History because the list is comprised of true and formative events along our years under colonialism. We haven’t been treated with the dignity of a state and are skeptical of it happening so suddenly. That is behind our attempts to explain the improbability of an emergence of Puerto Rico as a state.

The Porto Ricans (sic) are the dirtiest, laziest, most degenerate and thievish race of men ever to inhabit this sphere… I have done my best to further the process of extermination by killing off eight and transplanting cancer into several more… All physicians take delight in the abuse and torture of the unfortunate subjects