Obama frees Oscar López Rivera

Early this week, President Obama commuted the sentence of Oscar López Rivera, a Puerto Rican activist serving a 70-year sentence for a variety of charges, including seditious conspiracy, that is, conspiracy to destroy or overthrow the US government.  Notable figures who supported, and sometimes lobbied very aggressively for, Mr. López Rivera’s pardon include Nobel Peace laureates Mairead Maguire of Northern Ireland, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel of Argentina and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa; Alejandro García Padilla, governor of Puerto Rico; former US president Jimmy Carter; former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders; and Lin-Manuel Miranda.  

This is a remarkable list.  But it is not unanimous.  Some commentators are angry.  According to Charles Lane, for example, "this is the Obama pardon you should be mad about."  An article on "The Federalist" argues that the pardon "trades a terrorist for votes."  And a piece in the Breitbart News Network brands López Rivera a "domestic terrorist" and labels his freedom "a cause for leftist Latinos."

The facts surrounding López Rivera's incarceration are fuzzy and very much dependent upon one's point of view.  But the basic sketch is as follows. López Rivera  was born in Puerto Rico in 1943 and moved to Chicago at the age of 14.  He served in Vietnam at the age of 18 and was awarded the Bronze Star.  Upon returning to Chicago, López Rivera became a community organizer and leader for the independence of Puerto Rico.  He eventually joined a group called  Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional, or FALN.  Ultimately, FALN claimed responsibility for over 120 bombings around the United States between 1974 and 1983, which led to 6 deaths and many more injuries.  But the bombings connected to Mr. López Rivera were those from the Chicago area, and which led to his conviction, did not result in injuries.  This is consistent with López Rivera's assertions that he focused on not endangering people's lives.  As he told the Guardian last year, “For me, human life is sacred. We called it ‘armed propaganda’ – using targets to draw attention to our struggle.”

Whatever you think of Mr. López Rivera and his past, his pardon raises a much larger question for me.  The is a question that I have thought about for a long time, as has every Puerto Rican: What is the status of the island?  There is only one honest answer to this question, irrespective of one's politics: Puerto Rico is a colonial territory of the United States.  I don't really know how else to put it.  Puerto Ricans first became US citizens courtesy of the Jones Act of 1917.  But this is a curious kind of citizenship, because it is not accompanied by political rights and representation.  It can only be described as second-class citizenship.  The island remains at the whim of Congress on issues that do not involve fundamental rights.  US citizens on the island do not have a voting member of Congress, nor are they represented in the Electoral College.  This should be inconceivable under the US Constitution.  The status of Puerto Rico and its citizenry reminds me of what political theorists label "Happy Slaves."  Consent theory and US constitutionalism fail as applied to the people of Puerto Rico.  The status of the island is indefensible.

This is not to argue that Puerto Rico should be a state, or a commonwealth, or an independent nation.  Those are much harder questions.  The question of the status of Puerto Rico as it exists today is an easy question.  Too easy.

Once we understand the status of Puerto Rico for what it is, colonial rule for a modern American audience, the case of López Rivera turns far more complex and his pardon becomes much easier to see and understand.  His case reminds me of Hamilton and the founding generation.  This is a generation that took up arms in defense of their liberty at the hands of what they deemed to be a tyrannical government.  López Rivera is following in their footsteps.  He took arms against colonial rule.  Any seditious conspiracy of which he is accused pales in comparison to what Washington and his generation did, taking arms against the King.  Think also of what the founding generation did in the hot summer of 1787, meeting illegally in Philadelphia in order to "form a more perfect union."  Can we defend the actions of the founding generation while refusing to similarly defend López Rivera?  maybe we can.  But it would not be easy.  

And most commentators are not even trying.

What to make of the Puerto Rico Fiscal Control Board?

Back in June, the US Congress agreed on a bill to "solve" Puerto Rico's financial problems.  One of the solutions under the PROMESA Act (who says that politicians and their aides do not have a sense of humor?) is the establishment of a federal control board to oversee the finances of the island and the restructuring of the notorious Puerto Rican debt.  And just this past week, President Obama appointed seven members to the board, five of whom are Latin@s.

This is in-your-face colonialism for a 21st Century audience.

Monica Puig, citizenship and representation

A few days ago, Monica Puig won Olympic gold in tennis, the first athlete competing under the flag of Puerto Rico ever to do so.  I was sitting at my computer when I heard the news and a bolt of electricity shot through my body.   I cried the first time I saw Puig on the medal stand and heard "La Borinqueña" in the background, and cry every subsequent time I watch the clip. It took me back to my childhood, when my entire neighborhood sat around the television set and watched Wilfredo Benitez and Wilfredo Gomez win world championships in boxing.  The sense of pride is indescribable.  

Yet my passport tells me I am an American citizen.  My passport is wrong.

Dr. Ronald Fernandez, RIP

What a remarkable story.  On his way home from work, Ronald Fernandez was detoured by a police barricade because a Wells Fargo robbery was underway.  Anyone who grew up in Puerto Rico would appreciate the historical significance: this was the robbery perpetrated by Los Macheteros, the militant Puerto Rican independence group.  When I grew up in Puerto Rico in the 1970's, every school boy new of Los Macheteros.

This day in the life of Dr. Fernandez led him to a lifelong scholarly project documenting the colonial history of Puerto Rico. His first project, “Los Macheteros: The Wells Fargo Robbery and the Violent Struggle for Puerto Rican Independence,” was the first of his five books on the subject.  

Dr Fernandez died last Tuesday. He was 67.

Two things about his life's work bear mention.  One is the focus of his work.  From the Times:

[Four of his books] were deeply footnoted histories of American military and economic domination of a tiny island that has existed in a kind of limbo since becoming a United States possession in 1898, among the spoils of the Spanish-American War: neither colony nor part of the union.

This is a remarkable history, often ignored or neglected in the United States.   The history of the relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico should be a treasure trove for students of democratic theory.  For example:

The nearly four million residents of Puerto Rico are United States citizens, subject to federal taxes, but cannot vote in federal elections. They are represented by a nonvoting representative in Congress. Tax and regulatory exemptions given businesses based on the mainland raise perennial public complaints about environmental and economic exploitation.

A second important aspect of Dr. Fernandez' work is his focus on race and ethnicity as understood in the Caribbean. This is something that every Latino in the United States experiences when asked to fill out the Census, or any other time we are asked to indicate our race.  We are asked whether we are Latino or some other ethnicity, and the next question usually asks if we are black or white.  But this makes no sense.  As Fernandez wrote in his last book, “America Beyond Black and White: How Immigrants and Fusions Are Helping Us Overcome the Racial Divide:"

Americans want Jamaicans or Puerto Ricans to think (and act) in black and white . . .  Qualifications never exist; you see skin color or you do not. When Caribbean people try to explain that their world is much more complicated, we too often write them off as hypocrites and miss one of the most remarkable features of life in many Caribbean nations: When it comes to race and ethnicity, they are among the most civilized people on earth.

May he rest in peace.

Luis Fortuño Goes to Washington?

Apparently, Bob Barr is smitten with Luis Fortuño, Puerto Rico's Republican governor.  According to Barr, what Fortuño has done with the Puerto Rican economy is close to miraculous.

How bad was the situation facing Fortuño in the fall of 2008 even before he took office? Bad enough that Puerto Rico’s credit rating was near “junk bond” level; requiring Fortuño to travel to New York to meet with investment community leaders to urge them not to reduce the island’s rating even further. Puerto Rico’s budget deficit stood at $3.3 billion — at nearly 44% of revenues, worse than any of the 50 states. There was not even enough cash to meet his first payroll. One big reason for this predicament was the sheer size of the Commonwealth’s bureaucracy – nearly 70% of the budget was eaten up by government employee salaries and benefits. 

Puerto Rico’s fiscal turnaround since January 2009 has been nothing short of remarkable. 

The huge budget deficit has been reduced significantly; as a percentage of revenues it has dropped from nearly 44% to less than 11%. Government employment rolls have been reduced dramatically – by 17,000 and continuing to fall. Defined benefit pension plans have been closed out; the number of government agencies has been slashed; and the overall budget has been chopped a full 20%. 

As a direct result of Fortuño’s work, Puerto Rico’s bond rating with Moody’s has leaped from Baa3 to A3; the highest it has been in 35 years. 

Many questions can be raised about this particular story.  For example, what did Fortuño do with the 17,000 government employees out of a job?  Slashing budgets is really not the difficult part, so long as one has the heart for it.  Finding jobs for the displaced workers is the real challenge.

But what I find most intriguing about the story is Barr's suggestion that Fortuño image will rise nationally as a result of his success with the island's economy.  In fact, he argues that Fortuño is not a contender for the Republican nomination in 2012 . . . yet.  He is not alone.  None other than Grover Nordquist suggested as much over a year ago.

I don't know how to feel about this. I suspect it is a long shot, and by a wide margin.  I also presume that such a nomination would split the Latino vote.

And yet, can you even imagine a Latino President coming on the heels of a Black President?  

Unthinkable?

Puerto Rico's Birth Certificate Controversy

Somehow, you knew it would come to this.  Under a new law, old birth certificates issued by the government of Puerto Rico would no longer be valid after July 1, 2010.  Foreseeing problems with this deadline, the government extended it by three months.  The claim then, as now, is that these birth certificates are prone to misuse and particularly identity theft.

A few days ago, the inevitable happened.  According to a report from the Associated Press, the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles is not accepting the old birth certificates from those applying for a state identification card or a driver's licence.

In fairness to state officials and bureaucrats at the Ohio BMV, the old birth certificates are in Spanish, with translated language in parentheses.  It is also true -- at least as far as my old birth certificate is concerned, that the words "United States" appear nowhere within the certificate.

And yet, this story makes you feel oddly uncomfortable, especially if you happen to be, like me, a citizen of Puerto Rico, born on the island and residing in the continental United States.

The Status of Puerto Rico, H.R. 2499, and Luis Fortuño

Last Sunday, George Will offered the Republican Party a way out of its present conundrum with respect to the growing Latino population. This is a population that cares deeply about the immigration issue, both as a matter of self-interest and as a symbolic issue. The conundrum is this: how to address the immigration debate without at the same time alienating Latinos? For an answer, Will looked to Luis Fortuño, governor of Puerto Rico and a member of the Republican Party.

According to Fortuño, the solution is simple: Republicans must couple their insistence on border control with support for statehood for Puerto Rico. Doing this would soften the Republican message of immigration reform. Interestingly, as Fortuño well knows, not all Latinos are the same, nor do they care about the same issues. Crucial to his argument is his belief that Latinos now share a common consciousness, thanks to many factors, including Spanish network television such as Telemundo and Univisión.*

* This makes no sense to me. I can’t see how an immigrant living illegally in Phoenix will find any comfort within a party that closed down the border and wishes to send him back across the border yet granted full citizenship to the people of Puerto Rico for politically expedient reasons. Does Fortuño really think Latinos are that stupid? 

The debate over the status of Puerto Rico presents very difficult questions about democratic citizenship, sovereignty, and American constitutionalism. Unfortunately, Fortuño does not engage these questions. Instead, Will and Fortuño focus their attention on the practical and political realities of Puerto Rican statehood. This is unfortunate because the status question, and the future of millions of American citizens living on the island, devolves into a question of political expediency.

Nobody said colonialism would be easy.