Case Study: Puerto Rico As Puerto Rico deals with the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, which

has left millions without power, some are wondering: Is Puerto Rico part of the U.S.?

Puerto Rico, an island in the Caribbean Sea, has been a territory of the United States since
1898, after the U.S. defeated Spain in the SpanishAmerican war. It’s classified as an
“unincorporated territory,” meaning the island is controlled by the U.S. government but is
separate from the mainland.

Puerto Ricans by birth have American citizenship and can move freely between the island
and the U.S. mainland. But unlike Hawaii, Puerto Rico is not a state. That means it does not
have voting power in Congress and its citizens can’t vote for the U.S. president — but they
can vote in party primaries.

Puerto Rico is self-governed through a local constitution that was approved by Congress in
1952. Residents can elect their own Governor, Assembly and Senate. Whether Puerto Rico
will eventually become a U.S. state remains an open question. Last June, more than 97% of
voters said they would prefer to be a state rather than an unincorporated territory — but
turnout for the referendum was only 23%. The party of the current Governor, the New
Progressive Party, advocates for the island to become a state. “Colonialism is not an option,”
he has said. Why Puerto Rico has debated U.S. statehood since its colonization This
territory in the Caribbean has been fighting for autonomy and full citizenship rights for more
than a century. Located about a thousand miles from Florida in the Caribbean Sea, Puerto
Rico is a United States territory—but it's not a state. U.S. citizens who reside on the island
are subject to federal laws, but can't vote in presidential elections. Why?

The answer lies in the island's long colonial history—one that arguably continues to this day.
Puerto Rico had been a Spanish colony since the 16th century, but hundreds of years of
repression, taxation, and poverty took their toll. By the 19th century, an independence
movement sprang up on the island. Though Spanish forces quickly quelled an armed
insurrection in 1868, the country tried to diffuse tensions by allowing the island more
independence. But a few decades of relative autonomy came to a halt in 1898, when the
United States declared war on Spain—ostensibly to liberate Cuba from colonial rule. On July
25, 1898, U.S. forces invaded Puerto Rico and occupied it during the ensuing months of the
Spanish-American War. As part of the peace treaty in December 1898, the colony was
transferred to the U.S. and a military government took over.

Puerto Ricans continued to call for autonomy. In 1900, the Foraker Act established a civilian
government—but stopped short of conferring full rights on Puerto Ricans. As legal scholar
José A. Cabranes explains, white American legislators thought granting statehood to Puerto
Rico would force the United States to admit the Philippines, which was another U.S. territory
at the time, as well asendanger the interests of white laborers and farmers, and increase
racial mixing within the U.S. Instead, they granted Puerto Rico “unorganized territory” status
and offered Puerto Ricans limited self-governance without U.S. citizenship. In 1917, that
changed with the Jones-Shafroth Act. Seeking to address ongoing tensions on the island,
Congress passed the law which gave most Puerto Ricans U.S. citizenship, but allowed the
U.S. president and Congress to veto Puerto Rican laws. As citizens, Puerto Ricans also
became subject to the newly enacted Selective Service Act, which led to the conscription of
nearly 20,000 Puerto Rican men in World War I. But it wasn’t until the Nationality Act of 1940
that all people born in Puerto Rico were designated citizens by birthright regardless of their
parentage. Then, in 1950 the United States gave the territory permission to draft its own
constitution, provided it didn’t change Puerto Rico’s territorial status. In response, Puerto
Rico held a constitutional convention, establishing its own republican form of government
and bill of rights. In 1952, Puerto Rico adopted the official name of the Commonwealth of
Puerto Rico and a new constitution. Since then, there’s been an ongoing debate about what
“commonwealth” means. Some scholars and policymakers contend the term is a mere
moniker, as in the state names of Massachusetts or Pennsylvania. Others say it gives
Puerto Rico a special status as a new kind of legal entity that renders it neither a territory nor
a state. Either way, Puerto Ricans lack some of the key rights of mainland Americans. They
send delegates to presidential nominating conventions, but they can’t cast electoral votes in
the general election.

They are subject to federal laws, but lack voting representation in Congress: Though the
Puerto Rican delegate in the U.S. House of Representatives may serve on committees and
introduce bills, they cannot vote. Meanwhile, residents of Puerto Rico do still contribute to
Social Security and Medicare. But a contingent of scholars and policymakers believe that
Puerto Ricans are not full U.S. citizens due to the 14th Amendment of the United States
Constitution, which declares that all people born or naturalized in the U.S., or subject to its
jurisdiction, are citizens. Since the territory isn’t technically in the U.S., proponents of the
constitutional theory believe Puerto Rican-born citizens aren’t subject to the clause.
Opponents say that while Puerto Rican-born citizens lack citizenship status on a
constitutional basis, they received it on a statutory basis from the Nationality Act. Despite a
modern statehood movement—which includes an attempt to gain recognition from
Congress, and an upcoming statehood referendum in November—it seems unlikely that
Puerto Rico will become a state any time soon. In a 2017 Morning Consult poll, only 54
percent of mainland Americans knew Puerto Ricans are American citizens, and the United
States has resisted calls from the United Nations to fully decolonize its territory. Past
referenda on the subject of statehood have also been highly contested. he most recent, in
2017, delivered a non-binding result that favored statehood, but turnout was just 23 percent
—in a nation that averages about 80 percent turnout—and there were questions about the
election’s validity. The idea of statehood remains divisive in a territory that has long bristled
at the decisions of the nation that claimed it in 1898. “Puerto Ricans never asked to be
colonized, never asked to be denied their Puerto Rican citizenship and never asked to have
U.S. citizenship imposed on them,” writes legal professor Jacqueline N. Font-Guzmán for the
Washington Post. “They are colonial subjects of the United States.” For Puerto Rico to
become a state, it will need the support of U.S. citizens on the island and off. Until then, it
will continue to be a little understood territory with a contentious history