[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 16 (Thursday, February 26, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H670-H674]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             UNITED STATES-PUERTO RICO POLITICAL STATUS ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Speaker, next week the House will take up H.R. 856, 
the United States-Puerto Rico Political Status Act, better known in 
Puerto Rico and throughout the states as the Young bill.
  I think from the outset we should thank Mr. Young for the fact that 
the representative from Alaska has put forth a bill which, for the 
first time, provides for a congressionally sponsored plebescite in 
Puerto Rico, asking the crucial questions, and the questions which are 
fair, not only to the people of Puerto Rico, but to all of the people 
in the United States that have been engaged in this relationship for 
all of these years.
  For, you see, from November 19, 1493, to July of 1898, Puerto Rico 
was part of Spain. It was not an integral part of Spain; it belonged to 
Spain, it was a Spanish possession. It was not an independent Nation.
  From July of 1898 to the present Puerto Rico, after the Spanish-
American war, became again a possession of the United States. Now, 
under the current arrangement, Puerto Rico is known as a Commonwealth 
of the United States.
  Now, what does that mean? Well, to people like myself who have 
studied these kinds of things for a while it means that Puerto Rico is, 
at best, a territory, but in reality a colony of the United States.
  It is very simple to analyze that. Does Puerto Rico have the right to 
establish its own relationship with other countries, its trading 
agreements, its political relationships? The answer is no.
  Does Puerto Rico share the same rights that the 50 States in the 
Union and their citizens share? The answer is no.
  Puerto Ricans on the island, since 1917, have been American citizens, 
yet their citizenship is different than the citizenship of people who 
live within the 50 states.
  If anyone in the House, anyone watching us on TV, was to move to 
Puerto Rico tomorrow, they would keep their American citizenship. They 
would be protected by the American Constitution. But by having legal 
residence in Puerto Rico, they could no longer vote for president. They 
could send one resident commissioner to the House, not a Congressman, 
not six Congressman, but one resident commissioner, who in turn is not 
allowed to vote on the House floor.
  So if you picture that, the fact that your citizenship which is in 
effect here, by simply moving to the island, your citizenship becomes a 
second or third rate citizenship, it can only lead you to the 
conclusion that this relationship is something other than what a 
statehood relationship provides, or an independent nation's 
relationship provides, or that of an associated republic with the U.S.

                              {time}  1430

  Now, the Young bill proposes to deal with this head on. It says that 
sometime before the end of 1998 Puerto Rico will hold a plebiscite, 
with the options of separate sovereignty, independence, free 
association, of statehood, integration into the Union, or remaining a 
commonwealth. Those will be the three options.
  The bill further says, and this is where I really think the bill is 
very strong, it says that whatever the people of Puerto Rico choose for 
themselves we will take up within 180 days. The President shall present 
to the Congress a bill which will take in the wishes that came out of 
that vote.
  There are many people who feel that this bill therefore commits the 
Congress, and therefore all of the American citizens, to give the 
people of Puerto Rico what they wish. I wish that was the case. But I 
think the strength of the bill is that it commits to dealing with the 
results. Some may consider that a weakness, but it is the first time 
that the U.S. has said to Puerto Rico, give us your wishes and we will 
deal with them.
  The statehood option is very well understood. It becomes the 51st 
State. Some genius will have to figure out how to put 51 stars on the 
flag, and I am sure people have done that already. People will pay 
Federal taxes, they would send six Members to Congress, two U.S. 
Senators, and they would enjoy the full right of every other American.
  Independence is very clear. The United States would grant 
independence to Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico, I am sure, would become and 
continue to be a very close ally of the United States, and provision 
would be made for those individuals who were American citizens up to 
the date of independence, those who served in wars and are receiving 
benefits from war, people who have Federal pensions, all that would be 
taken into consideration.
  Under separate sovereignty there is also the possibility of 
discussing an associated republic status, which is somewhat like 
independence with some very close ties, actual structural ties to the 
U.S.
  Then there is the commonwealth status. Therein lies a lot of the 
opposition, if not most of the opposition, to the bill. In 1952, 
Congress set up something called, and I firsthand apologize to the 
stenographer, I will use Spanish every so often, and we will work on 
that later for the proper way to write down those words, it set up 
something called estado libre asociado, state, free and associated. But 
it was not any of the three.
  In 1952, it was presented to the people of Puerto Rico. The choice 
was, become a commonwealth or stay the same way. Well, commonwealth 
clearly at that point, in the history of Puerto Rico, was something 
better than what they had had, so commonwealth was accepted. But there 
were no other options presented at that time, such as independence or 
statehood.
  Now, in 1993, the Puerto Rican people, on their own, held a 
plebiscite, ``on

[[Page H671]]

their own,'' meaning that it was not sponsored by the U.S., with no 
commitment for the results to be dealt with. In that referendum 
statehood and independence were options, and then commonwealth, as it 
is envisioned by many people as a future alternative to the present 
commonwealth status.
  We have to be clear on that, because a lot of what will be said here 
next week is that we are being unfair to the commonwealth status by not 
including it. What the Young bill has done, it has for the first time 
in the history of this Congress said, this is what commonwealth is.
  That has upset a lot of people, because they were living under the 
impression that commonwealth was something else. In 1993 they proposed, 
in the referendum in Puerto Rico, what they envisioned commonwealth to 
be, and that won the plebiscite 48 percent to 46 percent for statehood. 
In all honesty, I am surprised it did not get 85 percent. What it was 
was a wish list of what folks wanted the commonwealth to be, so there 
is obviously a concern that whatever they wished for they could never 
get from Congress.
  So what this bill does is it outlines, it breaks down for the first 
time, it admits for the first time, that commonwealth is a unique 
relationship which does not either have the strength or the attributes 
of statehood, or the independence of being a free republic.
  Folks who support the commonwealth status will tell us next week that 
this is unfair. My suggestion has always been, why do you not then ask 
to bring commonwealth to the next step, which is an associated 
republic, free association with the U.S., and call it that. But there 
is a problem. There are some people who do not want to use the word 
``republic'' in Puerto Rico because that would mean breaking off from 
the U.S., and therein lies a lot of problems.
  This has been going on for a long time. As I said before, in July of 
1898 the U.S. comes into Puerto Rico. From 1898 to 1917 nothing is said 
about who we are, who they are or who we are as a people. In 1917 a 
vote is taken here saying that everyone who resides and in the future 
will be born in Puerto Rico is a U.S. citizen, but again I repeat, with 
all of those provisions that made that citizenship in some cases 
unique, but in my opinion less than what a citizenship should be.
  Now for the first time we have the opportunity to make a decision. 
This bill is supported by the statehood party in Puerto Rico, and 
supporters of statehood. What is interesting about it is that it is 
also supported by the independence movement in Puerto Rico.
  If Members know anything about Puerto Rico politics, if they know 
anything about world behavior in politics, they know that the people 
who want to integrate into the other nation are usually poles apart 
from the people who want to separate from the other nation. Yet, they 
agree on this bill.
  Why do they agree on this bill? Well, in all honesty, I think the 
independence leaders are extremely courageous and are probably the 
heroes of this whole debate, because even though, whenever there is a 
vote in Puerto Rico, they have not gone past 6, 7, 8 percent of the 
vote, they are willing to roll some dice, so to speak. They are willing 
to find out, if statehood wins, if this Congress is willing to give 
statehood to Puerto Rico.
  If it does not, then they feel they hold the upper hand, because they 
can go back to the island and say, you see, they are our friends, we 
have been together 100 years, but they really do not want us, so we 
must begin the process to separate; separate in a friendly way, but 
separate nevertheless.
  Why is next week's vote important? Why should it be important to 
people who are not Puerto Rican? Why should it be important to 
Americans throughout this country? Is it in our best interests as 
Americans to continue to tell the world that democracy is the ultimate 
goal, that there have to be free elections everywhere, and continue to 
hold a colony in the Caribbean for 100 years? Is it in the best 
interests of the United States to go into the Caribbean and demand that 
some island nations hold ``free elections'' while next door we do not 
allow an election to take place?

  How do we explain to some of the children in our country who, when 
faced in school with the issue of studying different parts of the 
world, have to ask questions as to what is Puerto Rico?
  I have found out in my years of working in the school system of New 
York that one of the toughest questions for teachers to deal with was 
to explain to them the relationship between Puerto Rico and the U.S., 
because if we were not citizens, then it would be simple. They are just 
people over there that we have control over, period. But it is 
different when we are talking about citizens.
  I told the Members what happened before, if we move from here to 
Puerto Rico. Well, it works in reverse. If the gentleman who represents 
Puerto Rico here, Mr. Barcelo, and who does not vote because he is not 
allowed to vote under our law, if he moves to any State of the Union, 
establishes residence within that State, he not only can vote for 
President and Congress, he can run for President and he can run for the 
Congress, and he can be elected to Congress.
  I was born in Puerto Rico. Why is he different than I am in terms of 
my congressional powers, if you will? Because I represent New York, 
where I grew up, and he represents Puerto Rico. Yet, we are American 
citizens. We went to serve in the military in the same way.
  Therein lies also part of what this debate is all about. Since 
citizenship came to Puerto Rico, over 300,000 Puerto Ricans have been 
called at wartime. In World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the 
Persian Gulf, and all of the other conflicts we have been involved in 
Puerto Ricans served, not only Puerto Ricans from the 50 States but 
Puerto Ricans from Puerto Rico.
  Now, picture this. You serve in the military, you go back, and for 
the next war you do not have a choice as to who your Commander in Chief 
will be because you cannot vote for him or her, but you also cannot 
stay out of the war as an independent nation, because you are told to 
be part of it. This is a question, more than anything else, of 
fairness.
  Part of what we are trying to do here next week is to suggest to 
ourselves that we in Congress every so often in this country deal with 
issues in neat, round numbers. Is 100 years not kind of a neat number 
to deal with? Actually, I think it is a tragic number to keep a whole 
nation of people in a status other than a fair status. But if we want 
to deal with neat numbers, then July, 100 years to the date when the 
United States entered Puerto Rico. By then this Congress and the other 
body should have spoken out on the issue of letting the people vote.
  Let me tell the Members how fair this bill is, and how it has set 
itself up so that there could be no controversy about the results. As I 
said before, a vote would be taken before the end of this year. That 
vote, the results would come back to the White House. The President 
would present to us in 6 months a bill to deal with the results. We 
would take a vote here. If they choose statehood or independence, we 
can reject it. If we approve what they request, then it goes back to 
the people of Puerto Rico for a yes or no vote. They can reject it.
  When we look at that, we also make an argument against those people 
who support commonwealth who claim that this bill excludes them. Let me 
remind the Members again, the reason many of them feel that exclusion 
is because it does not allow to put in the bill what they wish 
commonwealth to be.
  But it does not exclude the commonwealth status because, let us take 
it step-by-step, if the commonwealth status gets the majority, a 
majority of the votes, commonwealth wins. If none of the three options 
gets a majority of the votes, commonwealth stays. If statehood or 
independence wins and Congress rejects it, commonwealth stays. If 
independence or statehood wins, Congress accepts it, then it goes back 
to Puerto Rico, and if Puerto Rico rejects it the commonwealth stays. 
So commonwealth gets 5 shots at staying, while statehood and 
independence get one shot each at reaching that goal.
  Now, the problem is not with being fair to commonwealth, the problem 
is that commonwealth is unfair in itself. We cannot have, and I cannot 
overemphasize this, and I will until next Wednesday say it as many 
times as I can, we cannot have differing kinds of citizenship.

[[Page H672]]

  We cannot have a citizenship that allows you all the rights under the 
Constitution and have another citizenship that does not allow you 
rights under the Constitution. We cannot. We cannot explain why my 
cousins in Puerto Rico, who chose, for whatever reason, not to migrate 
to New York or to the other 50 States, do not have the same protection 
under the Constitution that I have. It makes no sense that you would 
lose yours if you went to Puerto Rico and set up your life down there.
  So the big question, and I would hope--I am surprised, in all 
honesty, that the national media has not picked up on this issue yet. 
One could say it is because we have had other things taking attention 
away from us, but this is an issue that certainly belongs to the people 
in this country as much as it belongs to the people in Puerto Rico.
  A lot of Members have said to me, you know, ``That is a Puerto Rican 
issue.'' No, it is not just a Puerto Rican issue; it is a United States 
issue.

                              {time}  1415

  It was not Puerto Rico that invaded the United States. It was the 
United States that invaded Puerto Rico. Therefore, it is our issue. It 
is not Puerto Rico's constitution that prevails over the U.S.; it is 
the opposite. It is not Puerto Rico's laws that prevail over the U.S., 
it is the opposite.
  The gentleman from Puerto Rico (Mr. Romero-Barcelo), when he is here, 
he can be here as an observer. He can watch us pass laws that affect 
his constituents on a daily basis and he does not have anything to say 
about it.
  We do not always get our way here. When we are in the minority party, 
as my party is, we do not get our way most of the time, but at least we 
have the ability to negotiate, to move here and there, to speak out and 
every so often we get our way. That is what is beautiful about a 
democracy.
  But the whole fallacy, and I am not suggesting that the gentleman be 
removed but, the whole fallacy of having a person elected in Puerto 
Rico in a campaign to represent the island here and then saying, ``Just 
sit there and we will ask for your opinion, but you do not have a 
vote,'' that cannot continue to be. I think the question we have to ask 
ourselves by next Wednesday, and thereafter, is where do we want to go 
as a Nation in terms of this issue? What is it that we want to tell the 
world?
  Is it the statement that for 81 years we have had citizenship that is 
not worthy of the rest of the Nation of our Constitution? Is it to say 
that for 100 years, 100 years Puerto Rico has been a territorial colony 
of the U.S. and that does not trouble us?
  Now, I do not expect Americans, other than those who have a close 
relationship to Puerto Rico, as I said I do, to feel any great pain 
about the fact that before these 100 years we had 405 years with Spain. 
But I think if we look at the whole picture, we would say we add 100 
years to the longest running colony in the history of mankind. We 
should try to do something about it.
  Now, there are people who are saying, wait a minute. We cannot pass 
this bill because somehow they will become a State and then we are 
going to have a State where people speak Spanish and people look 
different and people sound different.
  Well, first of all, we Americans on a daily basis are looking very 
different from each and other we are sounding very different from each 
other. In fact, the English we speak sounds different from each other 
in different places.
  But there is nothing to fear, because if for 100 years it worked 
somewhat, then certainly in the future it will work. If my colleagues 
come to me and give me arguments against statehood saying that 
statehood is not good for this reason or another, I ask that they 
please give me arguments that do not undo the relationship. Give me 
arguments that do not insult people by the way they speak or what 
language they speak. Give me arguments that do not undo of the things 
that happened in the past. Because when people were drafted from Puerto 
Rico to go to different wars or when they were allowed to join, I 
assure my colleagues, and I checked with my father, he was never asked 
what kind of English he spoke. They were never asked this question, and 
so many dying, never speaking a word of English in defense of this 
country.
  But that is another issue. Someone will bring to the House floor an 
amendment on this bill. It is an amendment that could create a major 
problem for this bill, and it is a friend of mine, a colleague of mine. 
So I hope to change his mind over the next few days. The amendment that 
this gentleman wants to present says that Puerto Rico shall have 
English as an official language if it becomes a State. There are a 
couple of problems with that.
  First of all, we are not dealing with a bill next week that says 
Puerto Rico will become a State. It just says they shall have a vote. 
And, secondly, we do not have an official language law in the country, 
so why would we single out a prospective State and say they shall be 
the only one to have it? It does not work that way.
  Now, we are who we are as a Nation. We are Hawaiians, we are Eskimos, 
we are Mexican-Americans, we are Puerto Ricans, we are a lot of people 
who make up this Nation. At no moment does our integration into this 
Nation cause a problem.
  Now that is one side of the coin. As far as independence goes, there 
are some people who may say we do not want to give independence to 
Puerto Rico because then it will be a problem and they will become a 
problem. What kind of a problem? If we have any faith in Puerto Ricans 
as a nation, if we have any faith in our involvement with them over 100 
years, then we will know that that is okay, that they will be a very 
productive and free society taking their place in the world.
  What they cannot be, and what we cannot suggest that they become, is 
more of the same. What they cannot be is this lie, this lie called 
``commonwealth,'' this lie called ``estado libra y associado,'' State, 
free and associated. They cannot be all three. So we have to move to 
solve this problem.
  Now I will be introducing an amendment to the bill, just one, to 
allow those of us who were born on the island and who reside outside 
the island to vote this one time on this plebiscite. The first thing I 
have to say is, and I know this sounds terrible, if my colleagues are 
going to look at my amendment, do not look at it with everything they 
have learned in this country about voting, because the first thing they 
will say is wait a minute. A guy who lives in California cannot vote in 
Boston. That is not right. He has got to vote in one place.
  But, Mr. Speaker, this is a different vote. This vote is not about a 
State, because Puerto Rico is not a State. This vote is about a people 
who were invaded in 1898 and who, even though they have become as 
Americanized as anyone can become, remain to a very large degree a 
Nation of people. That they can be integrated into the union. Hawaii 
was. That they can remain a separate Nation. That can happen.
  But they are a distinct people. We feel, so many of us who live 
outside the island, that the reason so many of us migrated from the 
island was due to economic conditions caused by that very same 
relationship. And so when a vote comes to determine once and forever 
the relationship and the status question, then in our opinion, all the 
children of that territory, all the children of the colony should be 
allowed to vote.
  I have to say that it is painful to me, and I know of all the things 
I mention around this bill, one that I get criticized the most for, is 
that it is painful to me to know that because the plebiscite would be 
conducted under American law, people who recently arrived in Puerto 
Rico and became American citizens, which is a contract with the Federal 
Government, not with the Island of Puerto Rico, would be allowed to 
vote in that plebiscite on the political future of Puerto Rico. People 
who came from other countries. While those of us who were born there 
and reside outside would not be allowed to vote.
  If we look at it, again, in terms of what American law says, of 
course my colleagues will never agree to my amendment. But if they look 
at it, as so many times we do in this House, some from here and some 
from here, you will realize that this vote is correct to allow all of 
us to vote.

  But it is going to be tough next Wednesday or next week on the floor. 
There will be many amendments. Some trying to help the bill become 
stronger; many trying to weaken the bill or put

[[Page H673]]

such controversy into it to defeat it. I do not know how many of my 
colleagues have notices, but there have been dozens of ads placed in 
area and in House newspapers speaking about the bill in favor or 
against.
  Let me tell my colleagues what worries me and troubles me about those 
ads. The ads against the bill are trying to instill fear in Americans 
and their representatives here in Congress as to what Puerto Rico as a 
State would mean. Again, I have to, until Wednesday, keep saying this: 
This bill is not about statehood; it is about finding out if they want 
to be a State.
  But the ads in the paper have been saying we cannot have these people 
as a State. Well, did I ever see an ad saying oh, no, it is World War 
II, we should not draft those people because they are not really good 
Americans. Do not draft them now. In Vietnam, the era that I served in, 
so many of the people from Puerto Rico that served there, did we ever 
see an ad that said: Do not draft them into Vietnam? No, that was not 
the case.
  All of a sudden these ads are flourishing all over. And I personally 
will try to get to the bottom of who paid for those ads. They have a 
right to put them, but I think we should have a right to know where 
they come from. And I suspect that some of the ads are paid for by 
groups who are working closely with folks who would like the status quo 
to remain.
  When we find out, we are going to have to let the world know that 
they took the opportunity during this debate to demean the presence of 
the Puerto Rican community and to suggest that we did not fit within 
the mold.
  Mr. Speaker, not that we ever pay much attention to the U.N., with 
all due respect to the latest Iraq situation, but we are not famous for 
paying too much attention to the U.N. That is a fact of life. We kind 
of set the tone and the U.N. sometimes follows. But the U.N. did 
suggest that by the year 2000, every country should do away with its 
colonies.
  How tragic it would be if the country that professes to be the 
strongest supporter of democracy refuses to step up to the plate next 
week and begin the process for ending the colonial status. Begin the 
process.
  Why am I so supportive of this bill? Am I looking at the fine print 
to see if it is true that it favors one option or the other? Not 
necessarily, because what it does do, which I think is highly important 
to me, is it begins the process to reach a final conclusion. If they 
ask for statehood and it is rejected, that will have created, in my 
opinion, what I have coined, a term I have coined which is a 
``legislative confrontation'' with the Congress of the United States. 
Not any other kind of confrontation; a legislative confrontation which 
will eventually lead to a final solution. Everyone should be in favor 
of that. Everyone.
  We get a thousand letters a week here. Thousands, from groups 
throughout the Nation and citizens throughout the Nation writing their 
Members of Congress demanding action on legislation. Yet the letters 
are not coming in and the media is not reporting the fact that this is 
an issue that all Americans should be concerned about. Solve this issue 
and solve it now.
  Mr. Speaker, I tell my colleagues if they say to me we do not want 
them anymore, go free, or, yes, we want them and we want to take them 
in, that is fine. But let me just say something very interesting here. 
In Puerto Rico, where they play very hard ball politics, politicians 
are always supposed to be for something. They are either for 
independence, for statehood, or for commonwealth.
  I may have started a new movement in this country. I am not for 
anything; I am against something. I am against the colonial status that 
Puerto Rico has right now. If I wake up tomorrow and Puerto Rico is the 
51st State, I will immediately greet those two Senators and six Members 
of Congress and begin to see how they can join me in bringing about the 
other things that I would like to see changed in this country.
  And if tomorrow I wake up and Puerto Rico is an independent nation, I 
will immediately come to the House floor and remind my colleagues that 
after 100 years of an association, we should maintain close ties with 
that nation. It does not bother me.
  Mr. Speaker, what bothers me every day is when I wake up and walk 
into this body and the pride that I feel, and I must say at the expense 
of getting a little dramatic, whenever I turn the corner and see the 
Capitol dome, I cannot believe that I, who grew up in a family where my 
father went to school for 2 years and my mother for 6, that I would be 
a Member of Congress. But I am immediately reminded, upon the minute I 
walk in here, that there are people in the place where I was born who, 
simply because all 4 million of them did not migrate to the United 
States. They do not enjoy the same rights I do.
  No matter how often I try to say to myself, I only represent the 
Bronx in Congress, I represent the Yankee Stadium area, I represent the 
Bronx Zoo, I represent that wonderful area of the Bronx. I cannot stop 
thinking at all that I, indeed, represent, indirectly, 4 million people 
on the island of Puerto Rico because their representative cannot vote.

                              {time}  1500

  And this whole issue of how we are going to continue to do this for, 
what, another 50 years if we miss the opportunity next week to vote on 
this issue. If we go through 1998 without letting the people of Puerto 
Rico speak to us about their political future, I am heartbroken at the 
thought that my grandchildren will be discussing with your 
grandchildren and my colleagues' grandchildren this issue of the status 
of Puerto Rico.
  This comes at a dramatic time for me. We are almost in the month of 
March. In March, I came here in a special election, meaning that I 
replaced another Member of Congress not at election time.
  I remember that day, as I stood right here, and I spoke to my 
colleagues after being sworn in by then Speaker Foley. I said that on 
March 28, 1950, my mother had arrived from Puerto Rico to join my 
father who had come here a year before and that on March 28, 1990, 
while their youngest son sat in the gallery, their oldest son was sworn 
in as a Member of Congress.
  To the memory of my parents who are no longer with us and to a memory 
of all of those who were born on that island, how interesting it would 
be if, in March of this year, we in this House complete a process that 
will begin to give the people in Puerto Rico the opportunity to 
determine their political future.
  I once again want to tell you that I have to really congratulate the 
gentleman from Alaska, Mr. Young. What he has done has been courageous. 
What he has done has been an example for everyone to follow.
  What he has done is to give us the opportunity for the first time, 
and I say ``us'', give the people in Puerto Rico the opportunity, but 
give the United States the opportunity to deal with a very serious 
problem because this hangs over our head. You may not pay attention to 
it, but this hangs over our head.
  We cannot argue in some circles the way we used to, because France 
and England and everybody is getting rid of their colonies. The African 
nations can tell you that. The Asian nations can tell you that, Latin 
America, but not the United States.
  I just want people to have these thoughts. There are concerns about 
what the final status would be, but I really think that that is unfair 
at this juncture to be concerned about what Puerto Rico would mean as a 
state. That is what all people are concerned about.
  We tried this once before. In 1991, this House passed a bill and the 
Senate rejected it or did not act on it. The reason was, instead of 
discussing the bill, they began to discuss the possibility of 
statehood.
  It presents a problem for some people. But we should discuss that 
problem in terms of allowing them to speak to us.
  What is the problem? Well, some people say, if Puerto Rico was a 
state, it would be the 50th smallest state in size and the 24th largest 
congressional delegation populationwise. Well, right. Well, so?
  That was the same place where you took a percentage of people to go 
to war. That was the same place where you gave citizenship in 1917. So 
that should not be an issue.

[[Page H674]]

  So the Young bill speaks to this. It speaks to this well.
  I will spend all weekend trying to gather support for this bill. I 
will spend all the beginning of next week trying to get support for 
this bill. I will be on the floor the day the vote comes up, and I will 
be lobbying. I will be doing what people in my profession do well, 
trying to convince people that my position is the correct one. But I 
think it really is.
  I am not asking this Congress to commit itself to anything, just to 
allow the people of Puerto Rico to tell us what they want to do. It is 
the least that we can do.
  So, in conclusion, my colleagues, my friends, I think you have to 
really try to put yourself in the position of the 3.8 million American 
citizens who live on the island of Puerto Rico, try to look at their 
situation, try to analyze their citizenship, try to walk in their 
shoes, try to understand how it must feel not to be part of a world of 
free nations and not to be part of a union of 50 sovereign states. 
Something has to give.
  I think that, as we speak in this country about family values and 
about morality and about what we teach our children, I think we, as a 
country, as a government, have to be careful that what we try to preach 
at home is not in total contradiction from what we preach in Congress. 
You cannot tell a child to be fair if our government is not fair. You 
cannot teach a child in school about democracy while we are not 
exercising everybody's right to self-determination.
  Next week, I hope that we get a resounding victory for this bill. Let 
the vote take place, let it come back to us, and then let us deal with 
the results.
  But let us leave here next week knowing that we stood up for 
democracy, that we stood up for self-determination, and that we honor 
those Puerto Ricans who lived their full lifetime as American citizens 
that were enjoying equality and, at the same time, at a point where we 
might be in the middle of averting military conflict with Iraq, let us 
honor the memory of all of those thousands of Puerto Ricans who died in 
American wars and who never got a chance to be equal citizens or free 
people in the world of free nations.
  So I close with my belief that next week will be a historic moment. 
Let us give this bill and Mr. Young the victory the bill and the 
gentleman deserve. More important, let us give the people of Puerto 
Rico the right to self-determination and the respect they deserve for 
having been loyal American citizens for all of these years.

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