SERIE PUERTO RICO, PARTE 2:

Los Puertorrique Os Y Un Legado De Ciudadan A De Segunda Clase

Galicia Stack Lozano

El Tecolote

Galicia Stack Lozano is a Junior in high school in San Francisco. She has a Puerto Rican mother and an Irish father.

If Puerto Ricans are Americans, why doesn’t our government provide the same level of aid to our Puerto Rican brothers and sisters?

Curious about this, I began to research the history of the U.S. involvement in Puerto Rico and it became clear that Puerto Ricans are America’s second-class citizens. According to studies, if I were in a room with 10 American adults, only five of them would know that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. This number decreases, the younger people are.

This statistic reminded me of a time when my mom, shortly after Hurricane Maria, consulted a lawyer about a family matter only to discover that the lawyer thought my aunt, a resident of Puerto Rico, was not a citizen by virtue of being Puerto Rican — my mom fired the lawyer, educating him in the process. I was shocked that someone who went to law school and is supposed to understand the Constitution and the laws of our country did not know something so basic. The reality is that we don’t learn Puerto Rican history, instead our government has actively participated in trying to stamp it out.

Puerto Rico first became a part of the U.S. in 1898, when Spain ceded Puerto Rico, Guam (another U.S. territory), the Philippines, and Cuba to the U.S. in the Treaty of Paris. During its first 50 years of occupation, Puerto Rico was a classic colony, characterized by the exploitation of its natural

El Tecolote resources, namely sugar. The next 60 years saw rapid industrialization on the island with increasingly cheap labor and tax exemptions, and the island became militarized.

Since the early 2000s, government loans have been used to help the country remain afloat, as manufacturing jobs left the island. Government services were dismantled or privatized, and the professional classes migrated off the island, leaving many Puerto Ricans without access to doctors and other professionals that once lived there. Congress eventually became the direct ruler over the affairs of the island. This has left Puerto Rico dependent on the U.S. for its existence, and our government has continually failed them in return.

In 2015, two years before Maria, Puerto Rico defaulted a $72 billion debt, the largest bankruptcy by a local government in U.S. history. This was largely due to tax exemptions that were put in place to draw U.S. firms to the island. Eventually, these firms fled the island in search of cheaper labor. Corporations that manufactured chemicals, electronics, scientific equipment, and pharmaceuticals stayed, finding tax loopholes permitting them to deprive Puerto Rico of an important tax base and further exploit the island.

While in the 1970s, Puerto Rico had one of the highest productivity levels in the world and accounted for 40 percent of all U.S. profit in Latin America. Today, Puerto Rico is one of the poorest places in Latin America.

Not only is Puerto Rico poorer than all of the U.S. states — with 45 percent of its residents living below the poverty line — but Puerto Ricans also pay more for goods. Puerto Rican residents pay 25 percent more than mainlanders for imported goods due to higher transportation costs. This is due in part to the Jones Act, a law that requires all goods shipped to Puerto Rico to be made only on U.S.made boats, staffed by U.S. crews and coming from U.S. ports. Because this obscure law is meant to protect U.S. shipping, it often doubles and triples the costs of goods. The Jones Act also resulted in a loss of 10-20 percent of aid after Hurricane Maria because only ships compliant with the Jones Act could deliver goods to the island.

Access to justice is also an issue for Puerto Rico. While local courts operate in Spanish, English is the required language for federal courts. This means that only those that speak English can serve on federal juries. Costs are higher in federal courts, as all documents must be translated into English. All federal appeals in Puerto Rico are handled on the mainland in Boston, making it even harder for litigants.

Our courts see Puerto Ricans as second-class citizens, as well. Recently, The Supreme Court ruled that residents of Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories cannot receive Supplemental Security Income if they live on the island, but can if they are living in the 50 states, denying Puerto Ricans $1.8 billion in much-needed federal money.

While Puerto Rico cannot share in some of the benefits that mainlanders receive, they shoulder an unequal burden when it comes to the military. At one point, 14 percent of the island’s territory was occupied by the U.S. military. This only recently changed after decades-long protests over their exposure to dangerous chemicals left behind by the military. Puerto Ricans have also represented the U.S. in un- equal numbers in wars, suffering the second-highest casualty rate in Korea (after Hawaii). It’s important to note that Puerto Ricans do not have a vote in Congress and do not have a say in declaring any of these wars.

Not only does Puerto Rico not have a vote in Congress, but its residents also have no vote on federal matters if they live on the island. This is not the case for Puerto Ricans who live on the mainland. I was shocked when I learned, the first time my Puerto Rican cousins were able to vote in a Federal election was when they moved to the mainland for college.

Puerto Ricans have also served as our nation’s guinea pigs. In the 1950s, newly developed birth control pills were tested on Puerto Rican women and coerced into forced sterilization. This resulted in one-third of Puerto Rican women being sterilized. The U.S. also attempted to stamp out the Spanish language, as well as its Puerto Rican heritage, on the island in a multi-year educational experiment that failed miserably. In a rebuke of these measures, movements to embrace Puerto Rican heritage and culture rose up and persist today.

Puerto Ricans will continue to be second-class citizens unless something changes. Although there is no perfect solution to the irreversible damage committed, there are a few options for the future of the island.

Statehood is one option, though unlikely, as having a majority of Congress voting to turn the Spanish-speaking island is unlikely in today’s political climate. Another option is independence, which is also complex since some Puerto Ricans want to keep their U.S. citizenship. The U.S. has also handicapped the island in

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El Tecolote is published by Acción Latina, a San Francisco non-profit organization. The mission of Acción Latina is to promote cultural arts, community media, and civic engagement as a way of building healthy and empowered Latino communities. Please, send us your feedback: editor@eltecolote.org

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Galicia Stack Lozano es estudiante de penúltimo año de secundaria en San Francisco. Es de madre puertorriqueña y padre irlandés.

Si los puertorriqueños son americanos, ¿por qué nuestro gobierno no proporciona el mismo nivel de ayuda a nuestros hermanos y hermanas puertorriqueñas?

Por curiosidad, empecé a investigar la historia de la implicación de los EEUU en Puerto Rico y me quedó claro que los puertorriqueños son ciudadanos de segunda clase. Según los estudios, si estuviera en una habitación con diez adultos estadounidenses, sólo cinco de ellos sabrían que los puertorriqueños son ciudadanos estadounidenses. Ese número disminuye cuanto más jóvenes son las personas.

Esta estadística me recordó una vez cuando mi mamá, poco después del huracán María, consultó a un abogado sobre un asunto familiar sólo para descubrir que el abogado pensaba que mi tía, residente de Puerto Rico, no era ciudadana por el hecho de ser puertorriqueña —mi mamá despidió al abogado. Me sorprendió que alguien que estudió derecho y se supone que entiende la constitución y las leyes de nuestro país no supiera algo tan básico. La realidad es que no aprendemos la historia de Puerto Rico, sino que nuestro gobierno ha participado activamente en tratar de erradicarla.

Puerto Rico pasó a formar parte de los EEUU en 1898, cuando España le cedió Puerto Rico, Guam (otro territorio estadounidense), Filipinas y

Locales

Mariana Navarrete and Diego Garza

El Tecolote

This year, La Mejor bakery celebrates 30 years of serving pan dulce in the Mission and is now recognized by the city as a Legacy Business. Its owner, Carmen Elías, has been in charge of following a family tradition and continuing with one of the most important cultural legacies in Mexican cuisine.

La Mejor has been a staple at 24th and Mission for 30 years. If we think about the last 30 years, San Francisco and the world have gone through many changes, but one thing has remained constant: doña Carmen’s pan dulce. This business has survived sociocultural and economic changes and even a global pandemic. The business that started as an investment opportunity has now become an emblem for the community and a continuation of a trade that has been going on for three generations.

In 1966, Elías’ father, Gonzalo Morales, came to San Francisco and two years later brought all his family from Mexico City.

“I grew up in 24th and Folsom and lived there for many years until I married and moved to Fremont,” Elías told El Tecolote. “Even though I moved away from the Mission [District] for a while it was always my first home in the U.S. and what reminded me of Mexico City.”

When she lived in the neighborhood, Elías’ father worked at most of the bakeries in the Mission, such as La Victoria and La Reyna. In Fremont, Elías worked for 20 years at Bank of America and managed to retire when she was only 39 years old.

“An ex-coworker and good friend of my dad knew about this place at 24th and Mission that was on sale so I decided to buy it with my retirement money and start my panaderia,” said Elías. Elías’ father passed away before she started La Mejor. Nevertheless, he had multiple friends with whom he had worked in the past at various bakeries, which helped Elías start her business.

“My father was the one that knew all the bread recipes so I felt a little lost in the beginning. However, my dad’s friends were a big support for me,” Elías shared.

This bakery in the heart of the Mission has seen it all. In an interview with Doña Carmen, she comments on how this neighborhood has changed in the last 30 years: “People have changed, there is more diversity. Before there was a very strong Central American presence and now it’s nice to see the diversity in people, languages and restaurants. Many people also come to our bakery asking if we make bread here and they like that it continues to be an artisanal process because they feel that it is original.”

In addition to the satisfaction of giving back to the community, for this long-standing Latina businesswoman, who came to the U.S. at the age of 14, starting her own business was an equally satisfying challenge. “After so many changes in my life, I had to leave but came back when I bought the bakery. I felt a lot of appreciation from the community.”

Currently, businesses like Carmen’s face the need to gradually incorporate technology to the best of their ability to make the time they must dedicate to the priority of their business, which is making quality bread and customer service, more efficient. “I would like to have more technology, especially so that they can set up a payroll system so that it’s not a headache. More than anything I would like to include technology in everything that is related to bread.”

To keep businesses like La Mejor alive, the city has the Legacy Business program, which is in charge of recognizing and promoting businesses with more than 30 years of experience with the aim of keeping the small business culture alive in San Francisco.

There are currently 15 legacy businesses within the Latino Cultural District, ranging from restaurants to sports stores that have been an essential part of our community’s culture and have exemplified generations of excellence and resilience. They have become a fundamental part of the lives of many people.