SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — If you walk down the streets in the capital of San Juan, statehood and independence aren’t on the tips of residents' tongues or evident inside newspapers.
But all it takes is one question to open the floodgates.
“Of course [I wish it were a state]. But it’s a little awkward,” said Butch Lee, who’s lived parts of his life in his native Puerto Rico and the United States. “As much as you say you’re family, there’s still a little something there. In Puerto Rico, you cannot vote for president. That’s a little creepy in itself.”
A Supreme Court ruling in April was the latest rejection Puerto Ricans felt from the United States.
The Caribbean island, a U.S. territory since it was acquired from Spain in 1898 following the Spanish-American War, has had a fraught relationship with America throughout their partnership, with Puerto Rico often on the wrong side of decision-making in Washington.
“It hasn’t been a pretty relationship,” said Toledo resident Margarita DeLeon, whose family moved from Puerto Rico to the United States in the 1940s. “Puerto Rico is the stepchild of the United States. They don’t take care of the island at all.”
In April, the Supreme Court found that it is constitutional to deny federal benefits to aging and disabled U.S. citizens living in Puerto Rico. If they relocate to the mainland, they are eligible to access benefits.
The court, in an 8-1 vote, sided with the Justice Department, which argued in favor of reversing a lower court decision that deemed it invalid to deny Supplemental Security Income benefits to Puerto Ricans living on the island.
“Just as not every federal tax extends to residents of Puerto Rico, so too not every federal benefits program extends to residents of Puerto Rico,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the decision.
The lone dissenter was Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who is of Puerto Rican descent.
“In my view, there is no rational basis for Congress to treat needy citizens living anywhere in the United States so differently from others,” Sotomayor wrote. “To hold otherwise, as the Court does, is irrational and antithetical to the very nature of the SSI program and the equal protection of citizens guaranteed by the Constitution.”
Puerto Ricans have been U.S. citizens since 1917, but citizenship doesn’t come with full political representation. Puerto Ricans do not vote in presidential elections and their congressional representative is a non-voting member of the legislative body.
Residents of the island are exempt from most federal taxes, including income tax, excise tax, and estate and gift taxes. They do pay federal payroll taxes and help fund Medicare and Social Security. Puerto Ricans contribute more than $4 billion annually in federal taxes to the United States.
Puerto Rico’s political status is a constant debate on the island of 3.2 million. (Five million Puerto Ricans live in the mainland United States.) In May, a group of bipartisan congressmen announced the Puerto Rico Status Act, a process that allows the people of Puerto Rico to determine their future political status: statehood, independence, or independence with free association. However, Puerto Rican statehood stands little chance of passing in the Senate.
“If you go stay with your grandmother, she gives you all the ice cream you want to eat. But then your parents don’t. The U.S. is like the parent. They might be a little stricter than you might like,” said Lee, who won an NBA title with the Los Angeles Lakers in 1980. “Everyone wants to determine their own destiny. You want to make your own laws. You don’t want someone else to give you the OK.”
There have been seven referendums on the status of the island since 1967, with statehood winning in the three most recent referendums (2012, 2017, 2020), though turnout is often low. Driving down city streets in busting San Juan and rural areas yields signs in English and Spanish proclaiming their position similar to political yard signs in the United States.
“The people of Puerto Rico have voted for statehood on multiple occasions and Congress has never expressed itself to resolve the status,” said Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González-Colón (R., Puerto Rico), Puerto Rico’s non-voting member of Congress. “This is the first time that we have a binding plebiscite with only non-territorial options: statehood, independence, and sovereignty in free association with the United States, and in this way honors the mandate of the people in favor of statehood, providing a mechanism to achieve it.”
There are deep divisions among Puerto Ricans and members of Congress, especially those of Puerto Rican descent. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D., N.Y.) and Nydia Velazquez (D., N.Y.), and Ms. DeLeon worry about Puerto Rico losing its unique culture and Spanish influence, including the Spanish language, if it becomes a state, though Alaska and Hawaii have maintained much of their cultural heritage in the six decades since becoming the 49th and 50th state.
Every U.S. President from Gerald Ford to Barack Obama publicly supported statehood for Puerto Rico. None, however, exerted their influence to make the island the 51st state.
“I haven’t witnessed any president really put a stake in the ground and say, “This is enough. We need to treat Puerto Ricans, who are citizens, like citizens,’” said Ms. DeLeon, who isn’t optimistic about Puerto Rican statehood during her lifetime.
Donald Trump voiced his opposition to Puerto Rican statehood after feuding with the island’s governor and the mayor of San Juan when they criticized the then-president’s response to Hurricane Maria.
Joe Biden has stated that he favors statehood.
“Even in my family, I have people who are pro-statehood and pro-independence,” Ms. DeLeon said. “So it’s complicated.”
Ms. DeLeon, a diversity equity and inclusion consultant for the Chicago-based Kaleidoscope Group, is an outspoken advocate on behalf of the Latino community. In 1988, she founded Image of Northwest Ohio, a local chapter of a national Latino advocacy organization, establishing the annual Diamante Awards and scholarship program the following year. The organization has raised more than $1 million and provides more than 30 annual college scholarships in northwest Ohio.
Ms. DeLeon, who describes herself as “Puerto Rican to the bone,” was born and raised in Lorain, where her father moved in 1948 after being one of 500 Puerto Rican men recruited by U.S. Steel.
“It was like a little Puerto Rico there,” she said.
More than 2,000 men were flown to Lorain from Puerto Rico, and the Puerto Rican population has flourished in the northeast Ohio town ever since. At one point, 100 Puerto Ricans arrived in Lorain per week.
“I am proud to have represented Lorain — whose vibrant Latino community has given the city a rich history — for many years,” said Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo), whose 9th district previously included Lorain. “The community is home to hardworking Puerto Rican families, as well as countless Latino veterans. While there are varying views in Puerto Rico on the issue of statehood - as citizens of the United States, the people of Puerto Rico should have the ability to decide for themselves.”
Ms. DeLeon’s father is one of 12 and her mother had six siblings. She has a significant number of relatives who still live in Puerto Rico and she travels to the island regularly, witnessing firsthand many of the complaints Puerto Ricans have about their relationship with the United States, none more so than the response to Hurricane Maria in 2017.
The Category 4 storm crippled the island’s power grid, killed nearly 3,000 people, and caused $90 billion in damage. The Trump Administration was roundly criticized for its response to the catastrophe, which was viewed as slow and dispassionate, especially considering that 44 percent of the population lives in poverty.
Two weeks after the hurricane, the international relief organization Oxfam chose to intervene for the first time on American soil since Hurricane Katrina. Forty-five percent of the island had no power and 14 percent had no tap water three months after Maria made landfall. A year after Hurricane Maria, tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans still lived under blue tarps.
“The way that the United States handled the aftermath of Hurricane Maria was a disaster,” said Ms. DeLeon, who holds degrees from Bowling Green and Toledo. “It was shameful. The good news is the people on the island are resourceful and dug out of it on their own. The United States response was deplorable.”
More than a century after being welcomed into the United States, Puerto Rico is still wrestling with the history of colonialism and what it views as separate and unequal treatment from Washington. Massive debt, Hurricane Maria, the coronavirus pandemic, government mismanagement, and population decline have decimated Puerto Rico’s economy.
Puerto Rico’s poverty rate is twice that of Mississippi, the poorest state in the United States, and the island’s average household income is one-third of the U.S. average. Statehood would give Puerto Rico another $8-$12 billion in federal benefits.
While the future is uncertain, the familial sentiment emanating from Puerto Ricans is as strong as ever.
“We’re very connected and very supportive of the island,” Ms. DeLeon said. “It’s in our blood.”
First Published August 21, 2022, 11:30 a.m.
