Alberto Medina
@AlbertoMedinaPR
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🇵🇷 Writer + editor + independence advocate. Comms @civicyouth + President @BUDPR , but views my own. Bylines: @newrepublic , @curaffairs , @thehill , etc.
Aurora, CO
Joined May 2018
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Earlier this year I wrote in
@curaffairs
that there were signs support for Puerto Rican sovereignty had grown. The latest polling confirms it: nearly half of Puerto Ricans now favor either sovereignty in free association with the U.S.—or full independence.
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Kamala Harris claps along to a song protesting her presence.
That’s either a demented level of mockery (not impossible) or, more likely, it just didn’t occur to her to have a Spanish-speaking aide at her side during a visit to her Spanish-speaking colony—which is its own insult.
Translation of the song ‘pleneros’ were singing in Spanish during VP Harris’ visit to Puerto Rico: “we want to know, we want to know Kamala what you came here to do…”
Harris was seen clapping to the rhythm of the music.
🎥:
@JoseADelgadoEND
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If it were true that Puerto Rico is so poor and vulnerable that it has no "viable" choice but to join the country under whose rule such precarity developed, we don't have a political status problem—we have a hostage situation.
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To most Americans, things happening in Puerto Rico to Puerto Ricans are things happening to "other people". And they're right: 125 years of U.S. rule over PR have not changed the essential truth that we are different nations.
The problem is the "U.S. rule over PR" part.
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It’s never a coincidence seeing the Puerto Rican flag next to the Palestinian flag.
(Photo from
@ColumbiaSpec
: )
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Being Puerto Rican is like a superpower for understanding American politics.
Oh, are you now discovering that a large swath of the Democratic Party is (almost) as morally and intellectually bankrupt as the Republic Party?
Puerto Ricans have known that all along!
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Los PNPs son tan malos que 5 minutos con Miguel Romero mató la campaña de Bill de Blasio en Nueva York.
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Using Trump as a bogeyman just doesn’t work on (many) Puerto Ricans.
PR already is, and has been for 125+ years under both parties, the worst thing it can be: a colony.
So if your message boils down to: “choose the slightly more benign dictator”—you’ve morally lost the plot.
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"Americans should be honest with Puerto Ricans, but most of all with themselves, that Puerto Rico will never rank high enough on their list of priorities to spur meaningful political action."
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Un día como hoy, hace cuatro años, botamos pa’l carajo a Ricky Rosselló.
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Argue for Puerto Rico statehood all you want but don’t give us this “statehood = equality!” fairytale. Tell the truth: “statehood = PR having to fight the same battles for equality and dignity that communities of color in the U.S. have been fighting (and often losing) for decades
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Hay un nueva generación de puertorriqueños que entienden que es importante reevaluar a quiénes hemos considerado héroes, villanos o víctimas en nuestra historia. Con buena razón.
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There’s a lot of Puerto Ricans in U.S. politics, media, academia, etc. who know full well statehood is nowhere on the horizon, but stop far short of supporting independence. I know they think their “neutrality” is useful. But, in essence, they’re upholding the colonial status quo
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Amigos de
@ElNuevoDia
: si quieren publicar las expresiones de un talking head de derecha, bien.
Pero, importante: Alex Kaiser no. es. economista. Es abogado y politólogo (y charlatán).
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Está bien, los independentistas tenemos que educar. Ese es uno de los retos. Pero estamos tratando de educar a un pueblo que votó por García Padilla, dos (2) Rosselló, etc. Al menos acepten que no está fácil la cosa con ese estudiantado.
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It's funny: I haven't heard a single American ask to see an economic study on whether Ukraine would be better off as a sovereign nation or as part of Russia.
Which is surprising, because they tell Puerto Ricans all the time our freedom should be conditioned on such an analysis.
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The irony is that the United States basically let Puerto Rico have sports sovereignty as one of a handful of "look, look: they have self-rule, so we're not an empire!" moves in the 40s and 50s. Well, now we love it and and they'll have to pry it from our cold dead hands.
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The only things you have to believe to support independence for Puerto Rico are:
1. Having colonies is bad.
2. The best way to stop having colonies is to free the nations you invaded—not keep them.
Every other consideration is not unimportant, but secondary.
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🧵In the past 7 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has made a series of decisions (and non-decisions) that have reaffirmed the United States' colonial control over Puerto Rico and directly harmed our people.
And if you think it's been just the conservatives on the Court—read on. 1/X
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When SCOTUS confirmed, *eight years ago*, that Puerto Rico is a colony, it de facto held that the President is an emperor—because only empires have colonies.
So what we should really step back to consider is why nobody cared then but is freaking out now.
I just want to take a step back and say that I think the Supreme Court just fundamentally altered the structure and nature of democracy in America. It awards the president the measure of power and immunity that is much, much closer to a king or emperor than an elected official.
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The bigger problem isn’t that half of Americans don’t know Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. It’s that *all* Americans know, deep down, we are a distinct nation and people—yet they remain supremely comfortable with their country’s ongoing colonial rule over our own.
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Once you recognize that Puerto Rico’s status is a colonial one, arguing that it has nonetheless been good for PR is nonsense. Do you really think the U.S. is so star-spangled-awesome that it created the only colonial relationship in history that isn’t extractive and oppressive?
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July 25 marks the 125th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Puerto Rico, of PR’s 1952 constitution, and the 1978 murder of independence activists.
In
@newrepublic
I argue these three events share one lesson and conclusion: Puerto Rico must be independent.
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Yup—19 years ago, the FBI picked the most sacred date for the Puerto Rican independence movement to conduct a raid on an elderly nationalist fugitive, have a sniper shoot him in the neck after a brief exchange of gunfire, and let him bleed out from a likely non-fatal wound.
A sacred day for those of us who believe in our nation's freedom.
The struggle for Puerto Rico's independence continues today—peacefully and politically. But we honor those who took up arms against empires.
¡Que vivan los héroes de la patria y que viva Puerto Rico libre!
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Vale la pena recalcar que la obsesión estadista con Cuba y Venezuela es el hombre de paja más grande del mundo. La mayoría de los independentistas no queremos emular ni a esos países—ni a EE.UU. Queremos la libertad plena para crear un sistema político netamente puertorriqueño.
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Committed leftists oppose Puerto Rico statehood because they rightfully reject the proposition that the U.S. should get to keep a nation it invaded—and they find "But (after 124 years of political domination) half the people want it!" an unconvincing argument.
It's that simple.
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Yo no sé como a los congresistas de EE.UU. no se les cae la cara de vergüenza cada vez que dicen “our territories”.
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The U.S. media is terrible at writing headlines about Puerto Rico.
I’m pretty sure Puerto Ricans grasp the impact of constant blackouts just fine. You can find them all over social media crying with rage at how it may cost them their livelihoods—or their lives.
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Mini 🧵- Las acusaciones de que quienes criticamos la gentrificación, etc. estamos siendo “xenófobicos” han llegado al punto en que suenan a acusaciones de ‘reverse racism’—o sea, al punto del ridículo. Me temo que en muchos casos es de mala fe, para silenciar reclamos… 1/X
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Toda esa gente que dice que el PIP no ha robado porque no ha gobernado: ¡acaben y pónganlos a gobernar! Piensen en lo mucho que van a gozar si llegan a tener razón…
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This is one of the worst things that's happened to Puerto Rico. Not in and of itself, but because it further convinced liberal Americans (who hardly needed it) that the problem with Puerto Rico is that Republicans are mean to us—not 125 years of colonialism *under both parties*.
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Independentistas jóvenes: ¡escriban! En español o en inglés. Para medios de PR o de EE.UU. Para publicaciones que creen ustedes mismos, o para blogs individuales. Donde sea.
Demostrémosle al mundo y, sobre todo, a nosotros mismos, que tenemos la pasión y la razón de nuestro lado
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As a Puerto Rican, I know one thing: if Palestinians did not violently resist, their relative passivity would be interpreted as acquiescence—as proof that the conditions under which they live couldn’t possibly be that bad… or they’d be violently resisting!
Damned if you do…
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Pro-statehood Puerto Ricans want to "hate the colony but love the colonizer," which turns out to be as morally incongruent (and politically useless) as the old "love the sinner, hate the sin" line from religious homophobes.
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In some ways it's a failure that U.S. media barely covers major stories from Puerto Rico. But mostly it's a reflection of the fact that we're different nations, w/ distinct sociocultural + political contexts. The bigger failure is ours for not realizing it, and acting accordingly
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La independencia de Puerto Rico es una oportunidad de desligarnos de un país cada día más sumido en la gerontocracia, el fascismo, el racismo, la violencia política interna y externa.
En fin: todo un sinnúmero de males que cada día nos afectarán más directamente.
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Yo me alegro que
@juandalmauPR
tenga la popularidad que tiene y ojalá sea nuestro próximo gobernador. Pero que a nadie se le olvide que
@marialourdespip
es igual o mejor; una luchadora incansable por Puerto Rico. Yo espero que sepa lo mucho que la apreciamos—¡y necesitamos!
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"It was wrong of Puerto Ricans to try to achieve independence through violent means!" say...
...Americans?
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New from me in
@newrepublic
: Today, U.S. colonial rule over Puerto Rico turns an ignominious 125 years old. It's been a shameful era defined by a sham "Commonwealth" and persecution of the independence movement.
It must end with Puerto Rico's liberation.
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True eight years ago, true today, true eight years from now.
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Puerto Ricans in the U.S. have to start walking into every classroom, newsroom, community forum, campaign meeting, legislative session—and demanding decolonization.
Not more funding, or media coverage, or any other small-d demand with which they can appease us.
Decolonization.
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En el fondo, el problema es que a mucha gente le parece que es lo más normal y natural, y está de lo más bien, que los lugares “deseables” para vivir sean para los ricos, y los “indeseables” para los pobres.
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High schoolers in Puerto Rico have walked out of class to protest the fact that their classrooms have no working fans or air conditioning.
The heat index in San Juan is 99 right now—and it’s raining.
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A major hearing has started re: Puerto Rico's debt. One journalist describes it as the "trial of the decade" for PR's finances.
It's taking place, of course, in federal court, before a U.S.-appointed judge, in a language 80% of Puerto Ricans don't speak.
It's legal colonialism.
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This is everything I ever dreamed of reading in a publication like
@TheAtlantic
. Just a few years ago, it was unthinkable. A few years from now, may it be undeniable.
Thank you
@jaquiradiaz
for this gift of words, moral clarity and, hopefully, courage.
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Dicen por ahí que los independentistas debemos dejar de debatir y empezar a construir. Eso ya sucede. Lo que pasa es que muchos proyectos, empresas, instituciones exitosas no se autodenominan independentistas porque entonces esos mismos que dicen que construyamos los marginarían.
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It's morally bonkers to suggest that Puerto Rico join a country that you consider so dangerous to minorities and marginalized people that you're otherwise advising Americans to flee it.
(Props to
@deviIette
for the find.)
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Lo más triste es que, cuando se joda todo, encontrarán la manera de echarnos la culpa a quienes advertimos que todo se iba a joder.
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Al igual que en el Verano del ‘19, se escucha el himno revolucionario en una protesta que no tiene que ver (directamente) con la independencia.
Porque el reclamo, el deseo y la lucha por un país mejor están atados inexorablemente a nuestra libertad.
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Every time I tweet or write, I have to choose between Spanish, so I can be understood by the vast majority of my fellow Puerto Ricans, or English, so I can be understood by the vast majority of people whose government controls our political fate. That’s colonialism for you!
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Ojalá un día no haya que venir a Washington, D.C, a luchar por los derechos y el bienestar de los puertorriqueños. Pero, mientras así sea, aquí estamos.
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Most of the corruption that takes place *in* Puerto Rico is not *by* Puerto Ricans.
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The mistake made by the Puerto Rican nationalists who attacked Congress on this day in 1954 is that they tried to shock the conscience of a country that, when it comes to its 125-year-old colonial domination of Puerto Rico, has proven to have no conscience at all.
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Ritchie Torres' maniacal support for Israel is a matter of political expediency, sure—but I think he also really believes in it.
After all, he supports Puerto Rican statehood. So, in both cases, he thinks a powerful country should get to invade a nation, abuse it, and keep it.
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Bueno gente, si nos van a obligar a leer tantos comentarios estúpidos sobre el
@PIPtwitteando
, vamos a jugar bingo.
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The level of cognitive dissonance and political confusion it takes to have "Anti-imperialist" in your bio AND then say: "Puerto Ricans should join the empire that invaded them, otherwise they're doomed to be poor, helpless brown people" is astounding—though not surprising!
Puerto Rico voted to become a state and realistically they would benefit massively from being part of the United States. Not doing so would just turn them into another impoverished Caribbean island nation, but hey it's ultimately up to Puerto Ricans to decide their destiny.
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This is insightful reporting on some of the legal inequality created by U.S. colonialism in Puerto Rico. For example:
The First Circuit’s relationship with Puerto Rico is a complicated one, and the judges carefully walk the line between inclusion and intrusion. Here’s what I witnessed when I accompanied them on their most recent trip to the island ⬇️
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It bears repeating: the problem with all these stories about how some random employee didn't know that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens is that it frames the issue in terms of some individuals' ignorance.
No: the problem is the U.S. invaded a nation and has kept it for 125 years.
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In the span of a few years, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled both that Puerto Rico has no sovereignty, AND that the fiscal control board Congress installed to exert colonial rule over Puerto Rico has—wait for it:
"Sovereign immunity"
Ain't that a bitch.
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Yo no sé si aprobar un aumento de sueldo para los maestros sería “irresponsabilidad fiscal”. Pero sí estoy segurísimo que negarles un salario digno es una irresponsabilidad moral.
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Look if you know anything about the U.S.; if you witnessed Katrina and Flint, you should understand that Puerto Rico’s status merely gives the U.S. statutory justification for the discrimination, underinvestment and neglect… to which it would still subject PR if it were a state.
All of Puerto Rico is without power as Hurricane Fiona lashes island — WaPo
Perhaps the most important argument for statehood is to give PR equal standing and actual attention and resources to rebuild after these storms. This is unacceptable.
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La gente que vota por tipejos como Gregorio Matías son los que después andan por ahí exigiendo "planes económicos" para la independencia de Puerto Rico... como si las tres neuronas que tienen les bastaran para "evaluar" esos planes.
No me jodas.
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Hurricane María did not change America.
Americans' concern over Puerto Rico lasted all of five minutes.
Six years later, PR is still a colony, neglected and abused under U.S. rule.
And the U.S. may very well reelect the president that oversaw the deadly, failed response.
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Desde el plebiscito de estatus de 2020 los PNP llevan repitiendo como papagayos que hay que “respetar la voluntad del pueblo”. Pues… por ahí viene.
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Anti-Latino sentiment has become, and perhaps always was, one of the foundational dynamics and driving forces in American politics.
The notion that *this* country would accept Puerto Rico as a state is almost as senseless as the idea that we should want it to.
UPDATE - 25 Republican governors issue a joint statement in support of Texas in its border dispute with the federal government, Vermont's governor was the lone exception.
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MAKE IT MAKE SENSE
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If you're glad the United Kingdom didn't keep all these nations, why do you want the United States to keep Puerto Rico?
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Si el PIP no aceptara críticas no estaría donde está: candidatos dinámicos, una juventud organizada a nivel local y nacional, resultados históricos en 2020 y tan buen futuro que... ¡otras figuras y partidos quieren aliarse con el PIP!
Lo que no se aceptan son críticas *pendejas*
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There's only like three economists in the entire world who have actually looked at this question, and none of them have come to this conclusion.
Americans say this based on vibes and biases that are a mile wide and an inch deep.
Puerto Rican independence would be so economically disastrous for the island, even with IMF and World Bank intervention, there'd be years of suffering and instability; it's not my place to choose its destiny, but my advice would be for statehood
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EE.UU. es un país mucho más corrupto que PR, pero mucha de la corrupción está legalizada e institucionalizada. Miren a Joe Manchin, que controla el país a base de sus intereses de negocios personales. Pero algunos insisten en que nos haríamos mierda sin que ellos nos “supervisen”
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I once again feel compelled to remind you that Congressman Ritchie Torres' vicious Zionism and his support for Puerto Rican statehood share the same morally rotten foundation:
A belief that it is OK for a more powerful nation to invade a less powerful one and ultimately keep it.
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El problema es que el único antídoto a la corrupción, que en el fondo se trata de poner el interés propio por encima del bienestar del pueblo, es el patriotismo, que se trata de exactamente lo contrario. Y, sin disculpas a quien le duela leerlo, en el PPD y PNP no hay patriotas.
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To this day, I still have random, well-meaning, liberal white ladies apologize to me for the United States' poor response to the hurricanes in Puerto Rico.
Dreaming of the day when they say, instead: "Boy I sure am sorry for the 125 years of ongoing colonialism."
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Yo repudio campañas para desacreditar a cualquier partido o candidata. Pero es irónico: muchos fans de MVC llevan meses diciendo que el PIP no es opción porque nunca gana. Quizás ahora que a su partido le están haciendo una fracción de lo que le han hecho al PIP entienden por qué
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Fíjense con cuánta frecuencia los ataques a
@juandalmauPR
o al
@PIPtwitteando
son sobre “estilos” o “actitudes” o “chance de ganar” (que no es otra cosa que medir popularidad), y con cuán poca frecuencia se trata de sus ideas, o falta de capacidad o carácter. It’s a clue.
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If I were a Puerto Rican with any sort of political power, economic clout, and/or cultural influence in the United States, I would dedicate myself obsessively to the pursuit of my nation's decolonization, almost to the exclusion of every other pursuit. But maybe that's just me.
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A los estadistas les encanta joder con que Albizu estuvo en el ejército y que más boricuas en EE.UU. apoyamos la independencia que en la isla.
Nos hacen el favor de resaltar que mientras más de cerca uno conoce a EE.UU. y sus instituciones, menos las quiere para nuestro pueblo.
Es bien fácil joderle la mente a los zurdos. Aquí te dejo un recuerdo de tu bootlicker favorito.
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"Most Americans are not moving to PR to build community with their Caribbean compatriots, but to take advantage of tax breaks... and wield and expand their economic power. And many Puerto Ricans do not greet them as brothers from another mainland."
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The problem with most "pro-statehood" Americans' view on PR's status is that, if you get past the talking points and into the political reality, the position is actually: "Puerto Rico should remain a colony until our broken Congress full of racists feels like granting statehood."
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American officials routinely say that there needs to be “consensus” in Puerto Rico for our political status to change.
But repealing or permanently exempting Puerto Rico from the Jones Act is something for which there’s near-unanimous support in PR… and it still doesn’t happen.
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If the Jones Act waiver is just for that one ship, isn’t it more accurate to say that it—not Puerto Rico—was granted the exemption?
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@ballesteros_312
@TammyDuckworth
"It wouldn't help the people being bombed if they stopped being bombed" is... a take.
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The United States used to at least pretend to care about “economic development” in its Puerto Rican colony—even if it was always a cover for subsidizing American corporations.
But for decades now they haven’t even bothered to pretend.
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Debe ser una existencia tan triste, la de Jenniffer González y tantos otros, dedicarse todos los días a tratar de convencer a sus “colegas” de que los boricuas merecemos derechos, igualdad, dignidad. Diría que no sé como no se mueren de vergüenza, pero sé que es porque no tienen.
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Asking, as some misguided people still do, whether Puerto Rico is "ready" for independence, is deeply wrongheaded and offensive.
It's the nation-level equivalent of asking, as defenders of slavery did in centuries past, whether Black people were "ready" for freedom. 1/5
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Pronto ni siquiera la educación en Puerto Rico será para los puertorriqueños…
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Democracy isn't just a mark on a ballot. For decades, some Puerto Ricans expressed their democratic will by organizing for independence, and 1.5 million pages of FBI surveillance files tell you exactly how much their will was respected. Do we just say "water under the bridge"? No
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Estadistas: voten por Juan Dalmau o el pipiolo que sea en el 2024, que los bochornosos gobernadores PNP le hacen más daño a los esfuerzos pro-estadidad en Washington que cualquier independentista.
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The fact that “not wanting to be American” is framed as a no-questions-asked *bad thing* in this tweet is the root of an unbridgeable ideological divide, and tells you all you need to know about the deep-seated jingoism at the root of many liberals views on PR’s status and more.
Not shocking that U.S. Latinos and pro-Puerto Rican Independence people don't see eye to eye.
Latin American diaspora who moves to the United States works hard to become American.
Puerto Rican Independence wants to break from the U.S. and doesn't want to be American.
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Entiendo que estadistas y colonialistas vivan obsesionados con la ciudadanía americana, pero ¿qué hacen dizque soberanistas resaltando que se queda bajo X o Y fórmula? Pidan libre tránsito o lo que quieran, pero afirmen que no habrá nada malo con ser ciudadano puertorriqueño.
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It's still very hard for me to "self-conceptualize" as a Puerto Rican who lives in the U.S. My body is in Denver, but everything else that I am—and crucially, my political consciousness—is in Puerto Rico. And I think there's a political usefulness to that that I wanna hold on to.
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Lo seguiré repitiendo ad nauseum—
La corrupción de todos estos políticos PNP es meramente la manifestación individual del “ideal” estadista: conseguir el $$$, cueste lo que cueste, sin importar cuántas cosas bochornosas o inmorales haya que hacer o aguantar.
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Muchos saludos al estadista gay que me dijo una vez que teníamos que ser estado porque las instituciones federales eran lo único que garantizaban sus derechos fundamentales—y a todos los que han hecho ese argumento en la era de un SCOTUS de ultraderecha.
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Porque a la marcha estadista fue menos gente que la cantidad de hijos que tú tienes, Gregorio.
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Habrá razones para criticar al PIP en estos momentos pero me parece insólito leer a algunos decir que el partido debió haber hecho X “aunque sea por las apariencias”. Esto es un asunto serio; se hacen las cosas porque son justas y correctas, no por el qué dirán y para las gradas.
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Ya veo que el nuevo talking point es que “las protestas le hacen daño al turismo”. Hasta en el fotuteo inevitablemente revelan que piensan primero, segundo y tercero en los extranjeros—sobre todo, claro, en los estadounidenses. El bienestar de los boricuas está como en 9no lugar.
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