Puerto Rico: Status Quo?
Written byJanine Mendes-Franco
“Our struggle for self-determination, to be free from outside impositions, is ideological and it is not what's best for the majority of the people who live here”: Gil the Jenius answers some tough questions about Puerto Rico's status.
Written byJanine Mendes-Franco
1 comment
I have been reading and digesting the stream of ‘Gil the Jenius’ commentaries on the ‘never never land’ of Puerto Rican status, and the current political atmosphere that he presumes for the island of 4 million discontents, and I can only conclude that with all his obvious glib intelligence – and brilliant sarcasm I have to admit – that the problem is really so complex and universal that words can’t describe it. Puerto Rico is a metaphor for all of History’s exploitation of the powerful over the less powerful. I can claim little more than marriage into the Puerto Rican ‘situation’, and from that and some of my most pleasurable moments in life on the enchanted island with my expanding Puerto Rican tinged family, I can only say that what is bad about the endless exploitation of the powerful over the less so is personified in Puerto Rico, but what is good about the uniqueness – the personality of people – is also personified by Puertoriquenos. They not only have a beautiful country which I would love to see become our next ‘Enchanted State’, but a marvelous variety of vital, creative and challenging personalities, like ‘Gil the Jenius’.