On this opinion piece, Yarimar Bonilla (The New York Occasions) highlights how colonialism continues to be alive and kicking as we speak. [Dr. Yarima Bonilla is the director of Centro, the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, and a professor of anthropology at the City University of New York Graduate Center.]
After I was a toddler within the Eighties, my mother, Abigail, suffered from extreme bronchial asthma assaults that always despatched her to the emergency room. Her well being ultimately deteriorated to some extent the place she had to surrender her instructing job. On the identical time, she and my dad separated. She anxious about making ends meet as a single mother or father with a continual illness. A hospital case employee let my mother know that she could possibly be eligible for a program referred to as Supplemental Safety Revenue, which gives month-to-month money funds to older, blind and disabled folks with restricted earnings and sources.
The hitch was that she resided in Puerto Rico — the place the identical advantages will not be out there to residents who’re U.S. residents. The case employee urged we transfer to the States, the place there was wider entry to federal help and likewise a change in local weather that may do her good. A couple of months later, we packed our baggage and moved to Topeka, Kan., the place my mother’s childhood good friend lived.
Our story is way from distinctive. Forty years later, Puerto Ricans nonetheless wouldn’t have entry to the identical social security internet as different U.S. residents. This example has been made extra dire by austerity insurance policies which have led to cuts in particular schooling and social providers. People who find themselves disabled or care for kids with particular wants should routinely relocate to the 50 states to get care.
Final month the USA Supreme Courtroom might have ended this disparity. As a substitute, it held that Congress has the correct to disclaim incapacity advantages to residents. Whereas disheartening, the ruling was hardly shocking. The court docket used the identical racist logic that for over a century has affirmed second-class citizenship for Puerto Ricans.
The case earlier than the court docket centered on José Luis Vaello-Madero, a former resident of New York who in 2013 moved to Puerto Rico to take care of his ailing partner. Mr. Vaello-Madero continued to obtain S.S.I. advantages, however when the Social Safety Administration realized he had relocated, it suspended his advantages and sued him for the $28,000 he had obtained whereas residing in Puerto Rico. He countersued for discrimination and gained in a district court docket, however the federal authorities appealed and the case went earlier than the Supreme Courtroom, the place the preliminary ruling was overturned.
The justices established that the Structure’s Equal Safety Clause doesn’t require equal therapy for U.S. residents residing within the territory. The truth that Puerto Ricans don’t pay sure federal taxes was used as justification. “Simply as not each federal tax extends to residents of Puerto Rico, so too not each federal advantages program extends to residents of Puerto Rico,” argued Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
But there isn’t any direct relationship between taxes and federal packages, as many S.S.I. recipients don’t earn sufficient to pay federal earnings tax. Furthermore, this system could possibly be reformed to incorporate Puerto Rico residents, because it already consists of residents of the Northern Mariana Islands, that are additionally excluded from federal earnings taxes.
The true query just isn’t whether or not Puerto Ricans ought to pay taxes or have entry to incapacity advantages, voting rights or every other particular person proper or entitlement, however whether or not the USA ought to proceed to deal with Puerto Rico as a colony, arbitrarily deciding the way forward for its residents whereas denying them each sovereignty and democracy.
Territories acquired by the USA, most notably by way of western enlargement, have been prolonged full safety below the Structure and ultimately included as states with full rights and duties. That modified after the Spanish-American Battle, when the USA took possession of Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam and different islands.
In a collection of Supreme Courtroom circumstances settled within the early twentieth century referred to as the Insular Instances, jurists and authorized students argued that Puerto Rico and different newly acquired territories have been “inhabited by alien races” that have been too culturally and racially distinct to be ruled below “Anglo-Saxon ideas.” The court docket created the class of “unincorporated territories” to justify the unequal software of constitutional rights in these areas. Congress has since leaned on this distinction to justify denying Puerto Ricans equal advantages.
Certainly, the Vaello-Madero determination reaffirms the uneven software of constitutional rights. Justice Neil Gorsuch devoted his concurring opinion to the historical past of the Insular Instances and referred to as for them to be overruled. He argued that they “haven’t any basis within the Structure and relaxation as an alternative on racial stereotypes.”
It’s definitely previous time to repeal these racist and xenophobic precedents. However even when the Insular Instances have been repealed, there isn’t any assure that different arguments wouldn’t be used to maintain denying S.S.I. and different entitlements to Puerto Ricans and residents of different unincorporated territories. What we have to deal with is the very idea of unincorporation, which is little greater than a justification for colonialism.
Two competing payments that search to finish Puerto Rico’s colonial standing are presently deadlocked in Congress. The Puerto Rico Statehood Admission Act, launched by Darren Soto and Puerto Rico’s nonvoting consultant Jenniffer González-Colón, would result in an instantaneous and binding sure or no vote on statehood. The opposite invoice, referred to as the Puerto Rico Self-Willpower Act, co-sponsored by Representatives Nydia Velázquez and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Robert Menendez, would facilitate an extended course of of debate, deliberation and, most significantly, schooling on the query of standing choices. A 3rd consensus invoice is now into consideration.
If any of those payments handed, it could give be the primary time Puerto Ricans their first have ever been given the prospect to actually take part in a democratic course of geared toward decolonization. Till now, islanders have been introduced solely with verify packing containers on symbolic ballots that weren’t tied to precise laws.
Decolonization is not only a matter of Puerto Ricans coming to phrases with their political choices but additionally of ending the silence and obfuscation of the USA’ imperial historical past. As we speak most Individuals know little concerning the particulars of Puerto Rico’s relationship to the USA. Certainly, many will not be conscious that the USA stays a federation of states and territories, in addition to related republics and sovereign tribal nations.
Colonialism is deeply embedded into our governmental establishments in ways in which affect not simply the choices of Supreme Courtroom justices but additionally the on a regular basis selections made by common Puerto Ricans in search of a dignified life. Like my mother, many as we speak are pressured to make the identical exhausting decisions — between their homeland, their family and friends ties and the care they want and are entitled to.
For authentic article, see https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/19/opinion/puerto-rico-supreme-court-social-security.html
[Photo above by Gabriela N. Báez.]