A Territory in Limbo

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – It's become a sardonic joke among residents of this storm-ravaged and bankrupt island: at least, they say, our fellow American citizens know who we are now.

But Puerto Rico, while getting a bit more attention in the past eight months, still operates in a sort of cultural and jurisdictional limbo, without either the advantages or burdens that come with being a U.S. state or an independent nation. And with its formal status unlikely to change anytime soon, islanders are reaching for another kind of status, that of a community whose independence comes not from separation from the U.S., but from home-grown success and a pride in their Caribbean culture.

Puerto Ricans can't agree on whether they want to join the union, remain a U.S. commonwealth or (as a small percentage argue) go it alone as a sovereign country. But nor do they want to continue as they were – subject to the regulatory whims of the federal U.S. government, struggling to keep quaint traditions with antiquated infrastructure and constantly wrangling with fiscal problems. Local activists see the massive destruction on the island as an opportunity for Puerto Rico to redefine itself as a commercial partner and vacation spot. But the task is complicated by the fact that the island is struggling with its own identity crisis.

"After 120 years of a relationship, we still don't call ourselves 'Americanos,'" says Aníbal Acevedo-Vilá, a former governor of Puerto Rico. That disconnect goes both ways – a Morning Consult poll last September found that just 54 percent of Americans knew that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, more than the 46 percent in a Suffolk University poll who knew that civics fact before Hurricane Maria hit.

There is little support in Congress for Puerto Rican statehood, and it's not just because the GOP-led institution is worried that the island would send Democratic senators and representatives to Congress, Acevedo-Vilá says should this be Acevedo Vilá?. "It's the economic issue, and the cultural identity issue. We are U.S. citizens, but we don't feel we are Americans. That's important to both sides – for Puerto Rico and for Americans," he adds. "It's one thing for you to be for multiculturalism, even bilingualism. It's another thing to accept a people that call themselves a nation within the federation. That's a completely different story."

Acevedo-Vilá's assessment is reflected among his former constituents. Most studied English (it's required in schools), but don't tend to speak it, or say they feel unconfident in their English. They may follow U.S. news developments closely and have family on the mainland, but getting ABC, NBC or CBS requires a cable subscription. They feel (especially in the aftermath of Maria) ignored by the U.S. government, and yet they risk their lives for it: Puerto Ricans have fought in U.S. military engagements from World War I onward, and are noted in history for the heroism of the 65^th Infantry Regiment during the Korean War. Even the popular culture exports eagerly consumed in foreign nations much further afield aren't embraced here. Puerto Ricans prefer their mofongo and bacalao to fast-food burgers, while lively Latin music, and not soft rock, plays in supermarket aisles.

Then there's the legal and regulatory set of contradictions that come with being a U.S. territory. Puerto Ricans can vote in presidential primaries, but not in the general election. Still, they must live under federal laws and regulations.

The tax situation is similarly uneven. Puerto Ricans don't pay federal income taxes (except if they are federal employees, military or have U.S.-based income). But since the threshold for paying income tax is lower on the island, and since the Puerto Rican tax rate is higher than the average state and local tax rate, Puerto Ricans don't end up paying less in income tax, according to a Government Accountability Office report.

Medicaid is also less generous for Puerto Rico, which gets a lower contribution from the federal government than states receive. Doctors and hospitals also get lower reimbursement rates, though the medical facilities must meet the same federal standards of care.

Payroll taxes are a bigger sore point with Puerto Ricans. They must pay the same FICA taxes as workers on the mainland, but are not eligible for SSI (Supplemental Security Income), which provides extra help to aged, blind or disabled people with very low incomes. And that exclusion does not apply to another U.S. territory – the Northern Mariana Islands, in the Pacific Ocean.

Puerto Rico also gets treated differently under the Jones Act, which requires that goods shipped between U.S. ports (including Puerto Rico) be transported on American vessels. The rule – which critics, led by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., say unfairly protects U.S. shipping at the expense of consumers and business owners – does not apply to yet another U.S. territory, the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The unequal treatment might not have been by design, says Jorge Duany, director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University and author of the 2017 book "Puerto Rico: What Everyone Needs to Know." The territories were acquired at different times in history (Puerto Rico became war booty in 1898 after the Spanish-American War), so there wasn't consistency, he says. "My sense is that the U.S. didn't really have a plan on how to govern these territories, so [the rules and laws] happened organically," Duany says.

All U.S. territories are subject to federal rules which ban foreign air carriers to exchange cargo among their own fleet, or to transfer cargo to different carriers on U.S. soil. Hawaii and Alaska have won exemptions to this rule, but Puerto Rico, similarly geographically from the mainland, is not. Including Puerto Rico in the exemption could make the island a lucrative, Caribbean cargo hub – but there's no move in Washington to make the change, says University of Connecticut political science professor Charles Venator, author of "Puerto Rico and the Origins of U.S. Global Empire: The Disembodied Shade."

"Congress has this wide berth to do what it wants to help the island. They've chosen to discriminate downward, historically," Venator says. "It's a question of will."

The island's jurisdictional status unlikely to change anytime soon. The current governor, Ricardo Roselló, was elected on a statehood platform, and an overwhelming majority of Puerto Ricans voted for statehood in 2017, but very low turnout buttressed anti-statehood residents' claim that they boycotted the vote. Regardless, Congress is in no hurry to make Puerto Rico the 51st state. Acevedo-Vila advocates a "new economic relationship" with the United States that does not include statehood. Puerto Rico's economy is not developed enough to withstand the fiscal responsibilities of being a state, he says.

In the meantime, local leaders are hoping to use the crisis as a chance to remake the island's economy. Annie Mayol, president of the Foundation for Puerto Rico, a public charity that focuses on social and economic development on the island, wants to broaden the "visitor" economy to extend both the time and the type of visit people make to Puerto Rico. Instead of focusing on the sandy-beach vacation, Puerto Rico can offer tourists experiences – whether it's taking a coffee hacienda tour in Yauco, learning to make mofongo from the yucca plant, volunteering, or going on the zipline in Toro Verde."

"Our motto is – there's no future in rebuilding the past," Mayol says. "We need people to come to Puerto Rico. It's even more important now after the hurricane, when all the visuals are negative. How do we rebuild it in a way where we get all kinds of new interests" explored on the island? Hosteling International is considering locating on the island, she says. The foundation is also providing assistance to small businesses, either by helping them modernize their digital marketing, or providing solar lamps so restaurants in areas with unreliable power can stay open longer.

It's going to be a long haul, even the most optimistic on the island say. Parts of Puerto Rico still have not gotten power back since Hurricane Irma hit last September, right before Maria. While initial government reports put the Maria death toll at 64, a recent Harvard University study found that 4,645 Puerto Ricans died as a direct or indirect result of the storm, fueling local distrust in the government. And Puerto Ricans continue to feel neglected by the federal government. Still "the most important thing, [amid] all the bad things that happened, is that people know now that we are American citizens, too," says Rafael Rodriguez Mercado, Puerto Rico's secretary of health. Achieving equality, however, is a much bigger hurdle.