Comments on COHA's Piece, "Puerto Rican Nationalism and the Drift Toward Statehood"

This is probably one of the best researched articles I have recently read about Puerto Rico. The analysis of the data seems to me flawed by unreal conceptual constructs (culture, and nationalism vs. economic dependence and statehood). I respectfully suggest a personality perspective. Five hundred and sixteen years of colonialism have shaped the Puerto Rican personality into two distinctively opposite poles; the colonized personality vs. the non-colonized personality, Ref. “The Governor’s Suits”. HR 2499 is a manifestation of the non-colonized personality of Puerto Ricans searching for a dialogue with the metropolis to end colonialism in Puerto Rico. The opposition to this project speaks for those colonized personalities who want to perpetuate colonialism in Puerto Rico. This proposal will never reach consensus in Puerto Rico because we are divided between the ones that want to end the colonial status and the ones who want to perpetuate the colonial status. Not having a dialogue with the US Congress is a way to perpetuate the colonial status. The ones who want to perpetuate colonialism oppose a direct dialogue between the people of Puerto Rico and the US Congress. At this stage, the issue is not to decide between Independence, Statehood or Sovereignty, but rather that we want to be heard as people and not represented by political leaders who have perpetuated this colonial status for the past 516 years with their trivial, tribal fights. All of these politicians are ignorant as to how their proposals will be shaped in reality because this dialogue between the Puerto Rican people and the US Congress has never happened. Mature relationships are not defined just by a one-sided perception of reality but by consensually agreed meanings. In my opinion, what is happening in Puerto Rico is a drift toward the non-colonized personality and away from the colonized personality that has characterized most of us for these past 516 years.

Guillermo González