THE NEW YORK TIMES June 12, 2023

What the Women of the World’s Oldest Colony

Know About Violence

By Anjane)e Delgado

Ms. Delgado is a Puerto Rican journalist based in Miami. She writes about heartbreak,
displacement and social jusFce.

Not everyone in Puerto Rico agrees we are the oldest colony in the world. But as a territory that
is neither independent nor a state — we have no voice in Congress — the tension feeds lack of
clarity and an illusion of self-governance that obscures our poliFcal reality. It robs us of a
defined naFonal idenFty, an economic road map and poliFcal dignity.

Dignity may sound like an abstract concept in the face of the material challenges the island
conFnues to face, but in its absence these challenges color daily life in myriad ways. Our
infrastructure is in shambles. Our poliFcians are selling off the land piecemeal in a doomed
effort to buOress an economy broken by decades of neglect and misguided federal and local
policies. Perhaps most urgently, we have a history of gender-based violence that ranks among
the highest in the world. Puerto Rico’s enduring colonialist legacy is oPen at the root of this
violence.

In April, American lawmakers reignited an effort to give Puerto Ricans a vote on the island’s
status. This Fme, unlike the last six plebiscites, the results would be binding. If we are once
again given the opportunity to decide our future — be it statehood, independence or a version
of the commonwealth — whatever we choose must lay the groundwork for a naFonal narraFve
that rescues our history and makes a relaFonship of poliFcal dignity possible, first with
ourselves and then, if we choose, with the United States.

Our patriarchal culture too oPen tells Puerto Rican men that they must be the bosses of their
families and deciders of their desFnies. That macho mentality also shames men for not going to
war against American imperialism. Though the United States may not fancy itself a colonizer, it

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has craPed a narraFve that willfully ignores our history of resistance and strategic negoFaFon,
and which doesn’t acknowledge how these men (not to menFon women) have earned the
relaFonship with their very real contribuFons of blood and riches.

ColonizaFon puts in place the systems and structures oPen at the root of heightened violence
against women. Frances Negrón Muntaner, a professor at Columbia University, who has studied
the harms of colonial subjecFon in the Caribbean and in Puerto Rico specifically, explained that
there is a paOern of violence against those who idenFfy as, or are perceived to be, feminine.
“There seems to be a need for men to assert control and exact pain from these subjects,” she
told me. That link is amply documented well beyond the case of Puerto Rico by scholars like
Emilia Quiñones-Otal. In her invesFgaFon, which examined regions where the United States
intervened aPer the Monroe Doctrine and the Cold War, she wrote, “we can observe the
dynamics of gender violence that are linked to imperialist invasions.”

One such example is Guyana, where, according to a 2019 report by United NaFons
Women, more than half of all women have experienced inFmate partner violence. Gender-
based violence contributes greatly to suicide rates, which is the second highest in the world in
Guyana. Scholars have drawn a connecFon between the country’s rate of violence, its colonial
roots and the patriarchal power structures that were established during slavery and are alive to
this day.

I grew up in Carolina, a town 15 minutes from San Juan. For years I thought the women in my
family had the worst taste in men. I never understood why they stayed with men who beat
them for not asking permission to leave the house or otherwise “disobeying,” or for any aetude
that appeared to challenge their all-encompassing supremacy. I thought that to survive, we
women had to make ourselves small, meek. But even that wasn’t enough. My grandmother,
aunt and mother would eventually leave the men who beat and bloodied them, and ours
became a family of women without men.

I didn’t fare much beOer. By 1990, I was a single mother of two, working as a producer of the
evening news for a local staFon. I lived in fear of the men in my life and men in general. I took to
leaving a broomsFck by the front door; when I’d come home aPer work, I’d unlock and slowly
open the door, using it as a makeshiP weapon, scouring every room for an intruder. The

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following year, Fred of living in fear, I applied for a job at CNN. I packed up my life and moved to
Atlanta with my daughters, who at the Fme were 1 and 4 years old.

Not every Puerto Rican man is abusive or violent, but I had good reason to be afraid. The year I
leP, nearly 12,600 women reported being vicFms of domesFc violence, and the vast majority
were aOacked in their homes. (There were some 3.6 million people living on the island at the
Fme.) Between 1995 and 1996, 13 percent of women in Puerto Rico reported that they had
been physically assaulted by an inFmate partner or family member. Things have only grown
more dire since.

In the wake of Hurricanes Maria and Irma, which devastated the island and sent it into a state of
emergency with no power or telecommunicaFons, domesFc violence survivors found
themselves more vulnerable than ever. In 2018, 51 women were murdered in Puerto Rico.
According to the government’s Office of the Women’s Procurator, 23 of them were murdered by
their partners, though it’s likely that figure is much higher, given the breakdown of the island’s
infrastructure and the unreliability of staFsFcs from official sources.

The pandemic further compounded the crisis. By 2021, the frequency and the ferocity of
violence against women forced the island’s government to declare a state of emergency that
called for a commiOee to provide educaFon, support and rescue around gender violence, along
with a mobile app with which vicFms could request emergency help. Even if these efforts
worked perfectly, they probably would not be able to fully exFnguish this fire, given how long it
has been raging.

For Puerto Rico, the soluFon rests with our status. Whatever we choose the next Fme we vote
must be permanent and negoFated: permanent so we forever answer the quesFon of what we
are (a state, a permanent partner or an independent country), and thoughoully negoFated with
the United States to provide the laws and financial resources we’ll need to redevelop what was
lost through the plunder of Spain and the misguided decisions of the United States.

There is a pervasive but wrong belief held by outsiders that Puerto Ricans have never resisted,
or fought for their country — that they rack up debt and do not earn their keep — and this is
how some Puerto Rican men see themselves, too. Deciding on and negoFaFng a permanent
status will help to lessen the self-hate that leads to gender violence. It will be a starFng point for
ensuring the safety of all ciFzens, regardless of gender.

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Whatever our poliFcal future holds, let it make us whole. Let it empower a system of
government that is sustainable for everyone, and that constructs a healthier noFon of
maleness. We must move away from the roOed masculinity born of imperialism, which kills and
beats when it is reminded of what it doesn’t want to be: a vicFm, weak, helpless, feminized.