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Jan. 9, 2022 - Radio Renaissance - Jared Taylor
10:08
Jared Taylor on Puerto Rican Statehood (1998)
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The key thing that they're watching right now, an amendment that could come up any moment, is from Gerald Solomon, a Republican from New York, who wants to make English the official language here for all business.
Well, trying to stop that from happening, Don Young, the chief sponsor of the Puerto Rico status bill, who's trying to get them to have their choice, is trying to put in weaker language that would say that they would at least use English primarily, but not officially as their only language.
That's going to make a big difference to the people here.
Carlos, it's certainly a hot issue.
Stay with us for just a moment because joining us now to offer some perspective for cases for and against Puerto Rican statehood from Washington editor of the journal American Renaissance, Jared Taylor, and from the League of United Latin American Citizens National Executive Director Brent Wilkes.
Nice to have you here, gentlemen.
Brent, let me ask you to start this discussion off.
The best reason for statehood right now for Puerto Rico from your perspective?
Well, this bill isn't about statehood.
This is about self-determination.
There are three options that they can choose from, so let's first get that straight.
But I think the best thing about this bill is that it is a self-determination bill.
It's a bill about freedom, about democracy, and that's what America stands for.
But I'm asking you specifically about statehood.
Would that be in the best interest of Puerto Ricans from your point of view?
If the Puerto Rican people choose statehood as the option, we fully support their choice, and we think that would be an excellent choice.
They would have voting representation in Congress.
They'd be able to vote for the president, and they'd be able to fully participate in the American dream.
Jared, what about this notion?
That an amendment is going to be attached to this bill requiring that English become the official language if Puerto Rico decides to become a state with the United States and the fact that many Puerto Ricans are divided about this issue.
I think that's an extremely important issue.
The fact that Puerto Ricans are very attached to their language.
Language is not just a noise that people make.
It reflects a shared memory, a shared sense of destiny, and the language issue reflects the extent to which Puerto Ricans feel that they have their own national identity.
I believe it's an identity that's incompatible with the union with the United States.
How so?
Why? Because how can you possibly have a state in which 80% of the people do not speak English?
They can't even speak to people in the rest of their country.
This notion of making a state out of such an artificial alien amalgam I think is impossible.
I'd have to object and take issue with that.
Let me take a break real quick, gentlemen.
I'm going to come back and we'll get to your reasons for that objection after this break.
stay with us
Welcome back, everybody.
Should Puerto Rico become the nation's 51st state?
That's the question we're putting to our guest today now as the House of Representatives votes on the future of the referendum.
Joining us once again from Washington, editor of the journal American Renaissance Jared Taylor, and from the League of United Latin American Citizens National Executive Director Brent Wilkes, and in San Juan we have Fox News correspondent Carlos Harrison.
Nice to have all of you back here.
All right, Brent, I promised to give you a chance to respond to the notion that English should be required.
As part of the admission to statehood.
Well, let me just address the issue of culture and whether the Spanish culture and the Puerto Rican culture would be acceptable to the United States.
We made that decision 100 years ago when we annexed that territory.
We didn't ask the Puerto Ricans then if they wanted to be part of the United States.
We took it.
It was a colonial war.
For 100 years we've kept it and not allowed them to make a decision on whether they wanted to statehood or independence or to be where they are right now.
And I think this is an excellent chance.
It's a wonderful bill.
It should pass.
If we stand for freedom, if we stand for democracy, and I think the United States...
Jared, isn't America a melting pot?
A melting pot of all cultures and people from all different backgrounds who share different ethnic roots, but they come together as Americans.
How well is it melting?
Racial dissension, ethnic differences, linguistic division, all of this are in fact America's oldest and most difficult problem.
To add another four million people who are not part of the traditional American mainstream, I think is a terrible mistake.
But what is the American mainstream today, from your point of view?
What is the real America today?
Well, that's certainly a question worth asking, isn't it?
The way this bill has gone before Congress, it's gone without any kind of national debate at all.
What is America?
An excellent question.
I don't think that it is a Spanish-speaking island in the Caribbean.
I don't think that's America, and most Puerto Ricans don't think so either.
Jared, you're treading on dangerous ground there.
I think, first of all, the United States did make a decision.
We got that territory.
We took it, and this wasn't a problem back then.
So now to raise this issue 100 years later is if suddenly we decided that we don't want Puerto Rico.
That's something different.
We made the decision 100 years ago to take this territory, and now...
I think we have to do the right thing.
If we really do stand for liberty and we stand for democracy, we should vote for this bill, and we shouldn't attach any kind of special English language requirement that we don't attach to any other states.
You call it a colonial conquest.
Well, what has been the traditional fate of colonies?
They don't become absorbed in them by the country.
They become independent.
The same should happen with Puerto Rico.
It is an alien territory.
It was never considered part of the territorial United States, and that's why it has this odd status.
Let's give them the chance to vote for that.
But what if the people of Puerto Rico opt for states?
What are their reasons for opting for statehood?
Maybe they want to be part of the United States.
I doubt that entirely.
The current delegate to the United States Congress named Carlos Romero Barcelo, he wrote a book in which he argues for statehood, and he calls his book, Statehood is for the Poor.
He didn't call his book, Statehood is for Patriots.
He didn't call it Statehood is for People Who Love America, because he knows those arguments would go nowhere in Puerto Rico.
As far as the Puerto Ricans jump in on this one, if I may, the Puerto Ricans raise this issue very well.
They talk about, in war after war, they have sent off their young to fight for the United States.
They're very highly decorated.
They've died fighting for the United States.
They've always been willing to defend it.
And that was one of the reasons of taking this and making it a possession and then a territory.
And finally, a Commonwealth in the first place was to have a place that would help defend the Caribbean.
After sending off all these men, I've talked to many veterans here who said, if I was good enough to go and fight and possibly die...
For my country, my U.S. country, why am I not good enough to be able to vote for the president?
And that's one of the things it means to them.
So when you talk about the patriotism issue, that is something that they do address here, and they feel that they're being slighted.
Why are they good enough to be cannon fodder but not good enough to vote?
Carlos, do you get a sense that there is a great deal of resentment by the fact that there is in this bill this amendment?
to adopt English only as a requirement because it's forcing Puerto Ricans to basically abandon their identity?
It's a tremendous amount of resentment in the sense that language is very closely tied to culture, tied to tradition, tied to that collective memory, as was mentioned earlier in this program.
And that's one of the things that people feel.
We're more than willing, since so many people here do speak English or at least understand it well enough to communicate in both, that they feel that if we work in Spanish and English every day anyway, why can't we work in Spanish and English when we're a state?
And in fact, they do have a precedent.
Officially, the two languages of Hawaii are English and Hawaiian.
It's just that Hawaiian, of course, is only spoken by a small percentage of the population there.
So, are you arguing, Jared, though, that when you said earlier that statehood is for the poor, what about all the other states that joined the union?
They didn't join because they were going to get an economic bonanza out of it.
The reason why I think statehood is appealing to many Puerto Ricans today is because they know very well that they will get the full access to all the federal handout programs that are available to states.
That is incorrect.
The GAO estimates that statehood would mean an increased $4 billion in transfer from Washington to Puerto Rico.
But won't you also get an economic boost in this country where you have Puerto Ricans paying federal taxes?
$49 million.
A tiny amount compared to the $4 billion that Puerto Rico would get.
How do you respond to that?
I think he's absolutely wrong.
The Puerto Ricans are very concerned about having to pay the additional federal taxes.
They're not so much looking at the additional benefits that they're going to get.
That's been a big issue, the cost of statehood.
But they have the right to choose.
Are the costs of statehood weighing the options of the benefits of statehood or not?
And we believe that, in the end, they will vote for statehood in a strong way because the benefits that they will receive, the ability to vote for Congress, the ability to vote for President, the ability to fully participate in the American Dream, But in the past,
when they've held referendums on this issue, Brent, Puerto Ricans remain divided on this issue about statehood.
The statehood option is growing in popularity, and I think the thing to keep in mind here is the commonwealth status that they voted for before was a super commonwealth status that allowed them to vote for Congress.
They didn't have to pay any federal taxes.
They got full federal benefits.
So it wasn't a real option.
This bill says they either get what they have now, or they get statehood, or they get independence.
And given those three options, we think they're probably...
Carlos, when you talk to people out there on the street in Puerto Rico, do most people identify themselves as Americans or do they identify themselves as Puerto Ricans?
Both. They identify themselves as Puerto Ricans by birth and Americans by birth, and they're very happy.
I mean, you have to understand, they are in a very strange limbo.
It's only the Puerto Ricans here who reside on the island.
Any American who resides on the island can't vote in the federal elections.
But those same Puerto Ricans, 2.7 million of them who live on the mainland, are entitled to vote and are entitled to the full benefits.
So it's just a matter of where they're located.
Those issues kind of wash out then.
Gerald, give me the last word on this.
There's a very important...
There's an important issue here that's being overlooked.
Why is this in the interest of the rest of the United States?
Puerto Rico is a poor island.
Its per capita income is one half that of the poorest state in the Union.
It has a murder rate that is two and a half times that of the United States.
If it were a state, it would have an AIDS rate that is second highest in the Union.
Why is it in the interests of the United States today, as it's currently constituted, to add a state of this kind to the current Union?
That'll have to be the last word.
Certainly, this is a debate that's going to remain heated for some time.
Jared Taylor, Brent Wilkes, Carlos Harrison, thank you so much.
I'm Uma Pema Raju.
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