In fall 2017, U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez for the 4th District of Illinois educated the Trump administration on the status of Puerto Rico. Gutierrez stated, “Puerto Rico is a colony of the United States of America, it had self-governance in 1898. My forefathers had self-governance and it was self-sufficient. It fed itself and took care of itself. And 119 years later without any self-governance, they want to blame us for all the problems on the island of Puerto Rico.”
Puerto Rico and the ongoing colonization of the island is nothing new. 1898 marks the official year in which the genocide of the Puerto Rican people became a legal act of the United States. Fast forward to today, we are in the same situation. Unfortunately, Gutierrez highlights a history that “the average Joe” in the United States is unaware of, so why should you care?
As reported by a research team at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 4,645 deaths have occurred in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. If that is not genocide, I do not know what to call it. History is repeating itself and with each day we ignore what is happening in Puerto Rico. People are suffering, dying and are reverting to exodus.
This is a call to your humanity.
What I need the average Joe to know about Puerto Rico and its people are:
1) Under the Jones Act of 1917, Puerto Ricans are involuntary citizens of the U.S.
2) Operation Bootstrap of 1947 contributed greatly to the Puerto Rico debt crisis and allowed for Puerto Ricans to provide invisible labor to build the economy of U.S. mainland.
