Puerto Rico Deserves to be Free

Saturday marks 128 years since the United States invasion of Puerto on July 25, 1898, during the Spanish-American War. Puerto Rico exposes a truth the US prefers to ignore: a nation that demands loyalty, service and cultural brilliance from a people it refuses to treat as equals. It is a moral contradiction so stark that once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Puerto Rico is the world’s oldest colony; 400 years under Spanish rule and a colony of the US since 1898.  

For more than a century, Puerto Ricans have given the United States everything a citizenry can give—labor, creativity, military service, scientific achievement, athletic excellence and cultural innovation. Yet the United States has never given Puerto Rico the political power, economic stability or basic democratic rights that should accompany those contributions.

This is not a policy failure. It is a moral failure.

In 1917, Congress passed the Jones-Shafroth Act which imposed US citizenship on Puerto Ricans without our consent. Puerto Ricans have fought in every major U.S. conflict since World War I, when we were drafted, but could not vote for the president who sent us into battle.

The Borinqueneers, the segregated 65th Infantry Regiment in the U.S. Army, earned a Congressional Gold Medal for heroism in Korea, yet the island they returned to still cannot vote for president and has no voting representation in Congress.

What does it mean to ask people to die for a democracy in which they cannot fully participate?  It means the United States accepts Puerto Rican sacrifice but not Puerto Rican sovereignty. That is a moral contradiction.

Puerto Rican culture is woven into the fabric of life in the US: Salsa and reggaetón shape global music (Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show); Roberto Clemente defines humanitarian athleticism; Antonia Novello breaks barriers in public health; Puerto Rican poets redefine American literature.

The United States loves Puerto Rican culture. It loves Puerto Rican talent. It loves Puerto Rican contributions. But it does not love Puerto Rican selfdetermination.

Influence is welcomed. Power is withheld.  

Another moral contradiction.

Since 1898, U.S. policy has repeatedly reorganized Puerto Rico’s economy around the needs of outside capital: Corporate sugar plantations; Operation Bootstrap’s lowwage industrialization; Internal Revenue Code Section 936’s taxdriven boom and bust. 

US economic polices, coupled with years of corruption by the colonial government, has resulted in a crushing debt crisis which came to a head in 2014, when the Puerto Rican government was unable to pay its debt leading to a downgrade of its bonds to “junk status.”  By 2016, Puerto Rico owed $70 billion. This led to Congress passing the  Puerto Rico Oversight,Management, and Economic Stability Act- PROMESA This fiscal control board (known as “la junta’ in Puerto Rico) – an unelected body with veto power over Puerto Rico’s budget – prioritizes debt repayment at the expense of the economic and social well being of Puerto Ricans. This has lead to significant economic pain resulting in a massive brain drain and the closing of 500 schools. 

Each era promises progress. Each era delivers dependency. Puerto Rico is expected to be productive, but never powerful. Prosperous enough to serve U.S. interests, but never sovereign enough to challenge them.

The newest chapter of this moral contradiction comes through tax incentive laws—Acts 20, 22, and 60.

These laws invite wealthy outsiders to move to Puerto Rico, pay almost no taxes, and enjoy the island as a tropical tax haven. Crypto investors, hedge fund managers and realestate speculators arrive with promises of “revitalization,” but the benefits rarely reach ordinary Puerto Ricans. Instead housing costs explode, neighborhoods gentrify, families are displaced, shortterm rentals replace community housing and Englishdominant enclaves reshape local culture. 

Puerto Rico becomes a playground for the wealthy and a pressure cooker for the people who actually live there. This is not revitalization. It is a new form of colonial extraction—legal, sanitized and marketed as “innovation.”

Puerto Ricans have given the United States our service, our creativity, our labor and our lives—yet the United States gives Puerto Rico austerity, oversight boards, tax havens for outsiders, and a political status that denies full democratic rights to the people. It is time for Puerto Rican independence. 

Pa’lante! Viva Puerto Rico Libre!

Julio Urrutia

Julio is a Central New York based attorney, community activist and photographer, and a friend of Syracuse Cultural Workers.