Word: rossello
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...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, his opponents predict corruption of Puerto Rico's soul and destruction of its economy. They also argue that...
...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...
...reply; the U.S. is expanding trade with Latin America, and Puerto Rico is a natural gateway. While affluent Puerto Ricans would have to pay federal income tax for the first time, the working poor and the unemployed would get higher benefits as welfare payments rose to meet mainland levels. Rossello promises that for every new dollar going to Washington, three would return in the form of higher assistance. Senator Ruben Berrios, head of the Independence Party, quips, "It is not a matter of 'Give me statehood or give me death.' It is a matter of 'Give me statehood...
...message that needed no translation: they wanted to keep a 1991 law that made Espanol -- and Espanol only -- Puerto Rico's official language. But the next day, the Puerto Rican legislature passed a bill making both Spanish and English official languages in the U.S. commonwealth. Later, Governor Pedro Rossello signed the measure, saying, "Now we have two hymns, two flags, two languages...
...language issue is linked by some Puerto Ricans to the campaign to make the island America's 51st state. Rossello is pro-statehood, and so is a majority of the legislature. Carlos Romero-Barcelo, Puerto Rico's resident commissioner in the U.S. House of Representatives, has only limited voting rights in that body, and he calls the new law a step toward full representation. Says Romero: "We in Puerto Rico want to be viewed as citizens...