I read all your posts on this thread as Dr Lee noted you certainly have a chip on your shoulder about America and Trump I’m not sure why you take such offense to my observation of this.
Fin, I care deeply about what happens to Puerto Rico. Why? Because I was born there and grew up partly there and because when I think of Puerto Rico it is not some 'intellectual' exercise of 'this issue is to be thought about dispassionately'. Maybe that is the Anglo way. It is not mine. You should study our Latin American political leaders on both the Left and Right. Nothing dispassionate about our discourse. It is our style. I am never going to be with an Anglo style. If that 'turns you off'? Oh well. I am not a golden coin to be liked by everyone in the world. It doesn't work that way.
Fin for me? Who is Borinquen for me? It is quite simple. It is my grandmother's face. She was born in 1902 and died in her nineties. She would take care of me when my parents were off to the university studying and working at the same time. Puerto Rico for me is summers with my favorite cousins and my friends and my Aunt running around. Who loved doing yoga and was a vegetarian and a fiery personality. It is dancing in the cafeteria mambos with professors who taught me World History, Western Civ I and II, Physical Science, Social Science, Economics, etc. all of them together singing and dancing and having fun with all of their students. Music in the streets at all hours and at all times, and people who love LIFE. In every way. I loved my years in Puerto Rico. Critical ones. Where I met my husband and got married and so on....it is not for dispassionate discourse when she is suffering. And the suffering is not of our making. It is outside of our control. We were never given the chance to RUN our OWN society. Every time we tried we were met with violence or jail. Every single time. Why? Don't we have a right to be a free people like all the other countries who are out there shaping their own futures? It is about simple justice. What is just. That is all.
This is not chip on the shoulder Fin. It is about injustice that has been ignored and unaddressed for a very very long time. Do you think I came into this Puerto Rico topic thread without years and years of dealing with the injustices and without on the ground action? No, I have not. I have years and years of dealing with internal and very contentious Puerto Rican politics. Both on the island and stateside and even in Latin American countries that are not the USA or Puerto Rico and who are curious as can be about what the hell is happening with us....
Ironically the longest and most in depth questions I get about Puerto Rican politics in my lifetime has been by Mexicans in Mexican cities, trying to figure out why Puerto Ricans still speak Spanish and not English massively? And why Boricuas are USA citizens with some second class status. The USA doesn't advertise with a bullhorn to the rest of the world....hey, World People, we have all kinds of weird and strange USA citizenship status going on--because we believe in screwing people over from their basic rights--like a right to have senators and congresspeople if you are a citizen. Mexicans find it fascinating...mainly a study in deep hypocrisy and they ask me questions in Spanish for HOURS. It is very interesting that most mainland people just don't care about it. Why is that? Interesting premise.
I speak with people from all nationalities. Japan, China, African nations, and they all ask me very interesting questions....Like, "Why do Americans advertise equal rights for all and they don't give Puerto Ricans like you the same rights if you are born in Puerto Rico? What does statutory citizenship mean versus constitutional?" Most of them read up on it...and then they come back and say, "That is two faced, unfair, weird and hypocritical. Why doesn't the USA Congress deal with a solution?" Another set of questions and answers.
People in the USA need to stop believing in the Power of Myth and BULLSHIT about justice and equality that doesn't pan out in real life because the reality is that the hubris stuff doesn't work. It leads to problems.