Marking a Puerto Rican Anniversary

July 26, 1998

Marking a Puerto Rican Anniversary

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For Every Puerto Rican, a Political Rally

By MIREYA NAVARRO

AN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- In his 35 years with Puerto Rico Telephone Co., Guillermo de la Paz has gone on strike more than 10 times, but the latest strike is different. Strangers bring him coffee and honk their horns when they pass the picket line, he says. Buckets fill with cash donations.

This month, dozens of other labor unions even went on strike themselves for two days to show their support.
"This is not a workers' strike," said de la Paz, 56, who handles reports of breakdowns for the phone company. "This is a strike of the people."
The five-week telephone workers' strike started as an effort to stop the sale of the publicly owned telephone company to a private consortium and to prevent feared layoffs, but it quickly turned into an emotional cause as the workers portrayed the utility as a "national patrimony."
Now, Puerto Rico Telephone Co. has become a patriotic symbol, an embodiment of nationalistic sentiment not unlike Puerto Rico's Olympic team or Miss Universe contestant. As such, it may help explain how Puerto Rico sees itself 100 years since Spain ceded it to the United States: as a nation with a distinct identity despite its status as a U.S. territory, and sharp divisions about what to become beyond that territorial status.
While Puerto Ricans have united in resisting U.S. assimilation and holding onto the Spanish language and Latin American culture throughout the last century, they remain at odds over whether to cement their ties to the United States with statehood or seek more autonomy or even independence. So the centennial of the association with the United States has been met here with celebrations, protests or indifference.
"I celebrate our relationship with the United States, but what I celebrate the most is the current relationship," said Mayor Sila Calderon of San Juan. Ms. Calderon is a member of the Popular Democratic Party, which created the current commonwealth or "free associated state" status in 1952.
"I celebrate the evolution of an invasion, to a colonial state for 50 years, to our own government, our own constitution, our fiscal autonomy and the preservation of our identity," she said. "We've achieved a sui generis situation, a Hispanic country with ties of citizenship with the American nation."
But for Carlos Romero Barcelo, a former Puerto Rico governor and statehood proponent who now serves as the island's nonvoting member of Congress, the centennial is bittersweet.
The invasion by U.S. troops under Gen. Nelson Miles on July 25, 1898, he said, was a welcome arrival that liberated Puerto Rico from neglect and poverty under 400 years of Spanish monarchical rule. But he said the promise of democracy remains only partly fulfilled because Puerto Ricans, compared with residents of the states, lack equal obligations and rights, like the right to elect a congressional delegation.
"That to me is geographic discrimination," said Romero Barcelo, a member of the ruling New Progressive Party. "We've stayed behind politically and economically."
Despite the diverse views, most Puerto Ricans find consensus in the defense of two products of their history: their culture, a blend of mostly Taino Indian, Spanish and African influences, and their U.S. citizenship.
The strength of these feelings was in evidence in 1996 when, prompted by Gov. Pedro Rossello's argument that Puerto Rico was not a nation, a poll by El Nuevo Dia, the island's main daily newspaper, found that 62 percent of respondents considered Puerto Rico, not the United States, their nation.
When asked which citizenship they would prefer if forced to choose, however, 54 percent said American, not Puerto Rican, the poll found.
And as they ponder their political destiny and Congress debates a plebiscite bill that would allow a vote on political status, even Puerto Ricans who advocate statehood say language and culture are not negotiable. But most of those who would prefer more autonomy and argue against "annexation" say U.S. citizenship is not negotiable either.
Seemingly contradictory, and often confusing to outsiders, the feelings make perfect sense to a population that has fought American wars, held American democratic values and enjoyed American standards of living, but insists on clinging to its roots and a sense of nationhood without sovereignty, a status that some here compare to that of groups like the Palestinians.
In Washington, Congress is facing its own divisions as it debates whether to allow Puerto Rico's 3.8 million residents self-determination. A bill was approved by the House in March by a one-vote margin and the Senate is now grappling with its own version.
There are political concerns and economic ones for the United States if Puerto Ricans opt for statehood. Puerto Rico also confronts the United States with identity problems, some political analysts here say, because a 51st state would make the United States more ethnically and linguistically diverse.
"The essence of the debate in Congress is really a debate over a multicultural United States," said Juan Manuel Garcia Passalacqua, a longtime political analyst and newspaper columnist here.

Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., who supports statehood, plays down the cultural issue, arguing that Puerto Rico has more in common with New York than California might have with Mississippi. Already, 2.7 million Puerto Ricans live in the mainland United States, according to 1995 census estimates.
Torricelli says it has taken so long for the debate over Puerto Rico to gain momentum in Washington because a territorial status that is now increasingly regarded as unacceptable was once common around the world.
He views the 100-year anniversary with mixed feelings. There have been "elements of exploitation" of labor and resources in the early part of the century and denial of full rights to Puerto Ricans, he said, but also "a generosity of spirit" that has fostered the island's economic and social development beyond that enjoyed by most of Latin America.
Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, who as head of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is pushing a bill to at least define the alternatives Puerto Ricans could vote for, said that whether the centennial is cause for celebration or frustration, "it's an opportunity for Americans to focus on the reality that Puerto Ricans have been under the American flag and haven't been able to resolve the status."
The three Puerto Rican parties advocate different status options but all agree that change is needed to foster the island's economic development and reduce dependence on federal subsidies. Even commonwealth supporters want an enhanced version of that status to give Puerto Rico increased powers, like the ability to strike its own foreign investment deals.
Statehood supporters, and particularly Rossello, have tried to pave the way for acceptance into the American union by making the island less distinguishable from the states and pushing for such changes as increased English instruction in public schools and the privatization of government-owned industries.
Rossello has argued that the sale of a controlling interest of Puerto Rico Telephone Co. to a private consortium, led by Connecticut's GTE Corp., is vital in a competitive telecommunications market, but the widespread opposition to the sale stems partly from suspicions of a pro-statehood agenda behind it.
Those who dismiss both the commonwealth and the statehood models include Ruben Berrios, a senator in the Puerto Rican Legislature and president of the Puerto Rican Independence Party.
Berrios said federal rule for 100 years, which he calls "100 years of colonialism," has left many Puerto Ricans bereft of self-confidence.
"There are people in Puerto Rico who have internalized colonialism so much that they don't believe they can govern themselves," he said. "All colonies have been the same way."
In the mainland United States, a Wirthlin Worldwide poll in May showed that 63 percent of Americans favored a plebiscite bill that would allow Puerto Ricans to choose their political status, and a majority also agreed with arguments in support of statehood, such as that the island's residents would pay federal income taxes.
In Puerto Rico, the same pollsters found that 45 percent of residents favored the current commonwealth and 42 percent favored statehood, a statistical dead heat that mirrors the results of a 1993 nonbinding referendum vote here. Five percent favored independence and 8 percent were undecided.
Despite the mutual reluctance to commit after 100 years of courtship, support for statehood in both island and mainland has steadily risen with the passage of time. But even those like Sandra Gonzalez, 39, a Paterson, N.J., resident who supports statehood, who regards the island's ties with the United States as "a blessing" and whose two children are American-born, still calls herself and her family Puerto Rican first and American second.
"My roots and my culture are Puerto Rican," said Ms. Gonzalez, a department-store assistant manager who has lived in the United States for the last 19 years. "It doesn't matter that we live here. Our heart is over there."

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