Florida may soon surpass New York as the state with the most Puerto Ricans, and with this growth has come significant political implications.
In Florida, the Puerto Rican population has ballooned over the last decade, expanding from 482,027 in 2000 to 847,550 in 2010, a growth rate of 75 percent.Read More »Puerto Ricans’ Growing Influence in Florida and Presidential Politics
Puerto Rico has fielded a team at the Olympics since 1948 but has never won a gold medal. The U.S. territory has won silver and bronze medals, but only in boxing, not in any other sport.
This year all that may change.Read More »Is This Puerto Rico’s Year to Go for the Gold?
Puerto Rico is proud of Tommy Ramos, a Bayamon-born gymnast who has qualified for the Olympic men’s gymnastics rings final to be held on August… Read More »Tommy Ramos and the Olympic Games
In 1899, Jose Celso Barbosa and a group of supporters founded Puerto Rico’s first political party dedicated to promoting statehood with the United States. At the time, he explained, “[w]e want and we ask for equality. Not colonial control or protection. We [support] the same ideal of the American union with equality in rights and in duties.”Read More »Happy Birthday to Jose Celso Barbosa!
On election day, the people of Puerto Rico will have no direct say in who becomes President of the United States. Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. They serve in the U.S. military. But as a territory and not a state, Puerto Rico has no Electoral College votes, and its residents have no formal voice on election day.
Yet Puerto Rico has already impacted the presidential election, and the influence of the Puerto Rican vote within the 50 states is expected to be a factor in November.Read More »Puerto Rican Influence in the Presidential Election
While Puerto Ricans can’t vote in presidential elections and don’t have U.S.Senators to represent them, they do have someone speaking for them – their Resident Commissioner in the U.S. House of Representatives. Isn’t that just as good? One or two votes rarely change the result of a vote in Congress, and any speaker can potentially influence many votes.Read More »Representing 3.7 Million U.S. Citizens in Congress – All Without the Power to Vote
Puerto Rico’s Resident Commissioner is officially nonvoting — but in the past those in this position have been allowed to vote on the floor, being asked to abstain only when their votes would make a difference to the outcome of a vote. Since a single vote rarely determines the outcome, Puerto Rico had a means of sharing its views, even if the votes didn’t have an effect on decisions made in Congress.Read More »Should Puerto Rico’s Resident Commissioner Be Allowed to Vote?
Governor Fortuño is working toward a bold program of bilingual instruction in Puerto Rico’s schools, mandating coursework in both the island’s official languages for all courses except history. The program is currently in a dozen schools, and is expected to roll out into first grade classrooms in 31 more schools, reaching all of Puerto Rico’s public schools soon. The program’s stated goal is to reach full bilingualism among children in Puerto Rico by 2022.Read More »Bilingual Instruction Grows in Puerto Rico
The Popular Democratic Party (PDP) has removed Representative Charlie Hernandez from his leadership posts for announcing his intention to vote for the “free association” option on the upcoming plebiscite.
There will be two questions on the ballot. First, voters will determine whether to continue in the current relationship Puerto Rico has with the United States. Puerto Rico is currently a territory of the United States. Voters are then asked which they would prefer: statehood, independence, or sovereign nationhood in free association with the United States.Read More »Charlie Hernandez Suspended from the PDP
