Statehood

Tuesday

Felipe Fernández-Armesto

Why would anyone choose to live in Puerto Rico?

From our UK edition

From the eastern Atlantic, the US looks boringly uniform. Yet Alaska is almost as different from Alabama as Turku is from Turkey. If you travel the length of the Mississippi, food, laws, customs and lingo change as surprisingly as along the Danube. Particularism is rife. In two counties in Vermont, there are warrants for the arrest of George W. Bush. In some parts of the South, you must step across a county line to evade laws against alcohol. In Indiana, where I live, every county sets its own time zone and you have to keep adjusting your watch on your way to Chicago. In this land of anomalies, nowhere is odder than Puerto Rico. It is an ‘associated’ state, but not a state of the union.

Sunday

Taylor Millard

Puerto Rico is more conservative than AOC thinks

There's a historic bill before Congress right now that would allow Puerto Rico to vote on whether to stay a US territory, become a state, or become independent. What’s holding up such a momentous occasion? A source closely tracking the bill confirms that New York City Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been a significant source of delay. The Democrat has remained cagey about her stance on Puerto Rican statehood, choosing to instead complain about American colonialism and imperialism. “I think one thing that’s important to highlight is just the injustice of that we are in now,” she recently told El Nuevo Dia, a bilingual Puerto Rico-based newspaper. Ocasio-Cortez also skirted whether she'd previously supported statehood.