Puerto Rico
Response,
Jul/Aug
1998
Plebiscites only create division. Congress must enhance Puerto Rico's autonomy and representation.
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Essay,
Nov/Dec
1997
The pending Young Bill calling for a referendum on Puerto Rico's political status offers an opportunity for the United States to end an embarrassing vestige of its imperialist ambitions. Independence would permit Puerto Rico to develop its economy and retain its national culture and Spanish language. But unless the Senate is forward-looking, ruling out commonwealth and making clear the price of statehood, centuries of repression and the lure of more federal benefits may land America with Puerto Rico's unwelcome petition to become the fifty-first state.
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Essay,
Fall
1980
"The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is a political and economic anachronism." With that one-sentence paragraph, Rubén Berríos-Martínez began an article in the April 1977 issue of Foreign Affairs, entitled, "Independence for Puerto Rico: The Only Solution." But the President of the Puerto Rican Independence Party was too kind: "commonwealth" as a political status is not even an anachronism; it is a myth.
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