Word: puerto
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...about being forced to learn all subjects in English years ago," says Ricardo Alegria, executive director of the Center for Advanced Studies in San Juan. Those memories, he speculates, cause many to resist learning English even today. Insular identity remains sacrosanct. Last week, after Madonna caressed herself with the Puerto Rican flag during a San Juan concert, politicians of all stripes raised angry criticism. Local clerics even pressed a campaign of hanging black ribbons on trees in protest...
Then there is the issue of Section 936 of the Internal Revenue Code, which permits U.S. companies to shelter the profits of their Puerto Rican subsidiaries. Now worth about $3.4 billion a year, this huge tax break was intended to create industry and jobs. To the statehooders, both the commonwealth and its chief economic prop, Section 936, are obsolete because they no longer produce much economic growth. Rossello argues that Puerto Rico can go forward only with "full participation, with all the rights, all the privileges but also all the responsibilities" of statehood. While he makes the transition sound easy...
Though they differ on some policies, advocates of independence and the status quo agree on one critical point: survival of Puerto Rico's culture depends on political space between their island and the U.S. One of the commonwealthers' best slogans promises voters "the best of both worlds" if they retain the present system with only minor changes -- still more federal assistance, for example. Celeste Benitez, who directs the Populares' campaign to preserve the commonwealth status, argues, "We are a people with our own language, our own culture. This plebiscite is about preserving that identity...
Still, Rossello dismisses the cultural-colonialism argument as an irrelevant scare tactic. The U.S. is becoming more tolerant of diversity rather than less, he says, and Puerto Ricans will be as free to embrace their own traditions as they are today...
...early years of commonwealth, adroit use of Section 936 and other incentives raised Puerto Rico from dire poverty to one of the highest living standards in Latin America. But progress has stalled. Industrial development has failed so far to move the island's per capita income close to mainland levels. Unemployment is now 18%, and half the people get some form of public assistance. This year Congress voted to reduce the 936 tax benefit starting in 1994. Statehood would accelerate 936's demise. "It would be a disaster," says Alex Maldonado, a former newspaper editor who is writing an economic...