Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

by Eduardo Galeano

Puerto Rico, another sugar factory, remained a prisoner. From the U.S. standpoint, Puerto Ricans are not good enough to live in a country of their own but are good enough to die in Vietnam for a country which is not theirs. In proportion to population, the “Free Associated State” of Puerto Rico has more soldiers fighting in Southeast Asia than the rest of the United States. Puerto Ricans resisting compulsory military service in Vietnam are sent to U.S. penitentiaries. Other humiliations inherited from the invasion of 1898 and blessed by law (the law of the U.S. Congress) are added to service in the U.S. armed forces. Puerto Rico is symbolically represented in the Congress, being without vote and virtually without voice. In exchange for this right: colonial status for an island that before the U.S. occupation had its own currency and carried on prosperous trade with the principal markets. Today the currency is the dollar and customs duties are fixed in Washington, where everything connected with the island’s external and internal trade is decided. The same for foreign relations, transport, communications, wages, and work conditions. U.S. federal courts sit in judgment on Puerto Ricans; the local army is part of the U.S. army. Industry and commerce are in the hands of U.S. private interests. The emigration of Puerto Ricans has threatened to make denationalization complete: poverty has driven more than a million to New York hoping to improve their lot at the cost of losing th...