'Puerto Rico had never seen anything like it:' the meaning of the general strike - includes related article on Puerto Rico's economy

Progressive, The, Sept, 1998 by Juan Gonzalez

The still unsettled fight over the island's colonial status helped sweep the telephone company strike along. This year marks the 100th anniversary of Puerto Rico becoming a U.S. colony. On July 25, 1898, in the midst of the Spanish-American War, General Nelson Miles landed in the southwest coastal town of Guanica with several thousand U.S. troops and raised the American flag. Miles promised island residents their freedom. After 400 years of Spanish colonialism, many welcomed him. The U.S. occupation, Miles said, was "not to interfere with the existing laws and customs which are beneficial for your people."

Yet Puerto Rico was immediately turned into a prize of war under the Treaty of Paris, along with the Philippines, Guam, and the protectorate over Cuba.

For the first half of this century, the island was treated as a formal colony. Presidents appointed American governors who ruled as they saw fit. In 1917, Congress declared Puerto Ricans citizens of the United States, despite the overwhelming opposition of the island's own House of Delegates. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a series of rulings known as the insular decisions, defined Puerto Rico as "a territory ... belonging to the United States but not a part of the United States" (Downes v. Bidwell, 1901). These rulings became the legal underpinnings of the American colonial empire.

Meanwhile, U.S. sugar companies flocked to the island, gobbled up the best lands, paid their workers starvation wages, and made off with fortunes. By the 1930s, the island had become the poorhouse of the Caribbean.

Discontent with American rule spawned labor unrest and a strong nationalist movement. Roosevelt's New Deal defused the crisis by setting in motion local self-rule, an industrialization project to provide new jobs, massive emigration to the United States, and a buildup of military bases on the island.

Luis Munoz Marin, a democratic socialist and Roosevelt follower, became the island's first elected governor in 1948. Munoz devised the idea of commonwealth status, where Puerto Ricans would run local affairs but still be under U.S. control.

In 1952, Puerto Ricans approved commonwealth in a referendum, and the United States promptly reported to the United Nations that the island was no longer a colony.

Only during the past few years have all political forces on the island, as well as the White House and Congress, publicly admitted that Puerto Rico has never gone through a genuine process of self-determination. But efforts by the major Puerto Rican political parties to get Congress to agree to a binding plebiscite have foundered because of divisions in both countries.

Republicans fear that if a majority of island residents vote for statehood--in a 1993 nonbinding referendum, statehood garnered 46 percent of the ballots--it would shift the balance of power in Congress. Puerto Rico would be sending two Senators and at least six Representatives to Washington.

This impoverished, Spanish-speaking territory would also pose a challenge to advocates of English as the official language of the United States. And Puerto Rican statehood would increase pressures to resolve the status of the District of Columbia.