Do you read? Have someone read my post to you... slowly. I did not state that the citizens pay federal income tax... they pay an income tax locally. Then pr pays federally. 4 billion. Dumbfuck.
I didn't hear any piping up about your lack of history accuracy... dug up some facts for you but you probably need them on a meme.
When the US took over Puerto Rico in 1898, Puertoricans fed themselves. Their economy was primarily agricultural. Around 40% of the land was given over to coffee, 32% for growing food for local consumption, 15% to sugar and 1% for tobacco. Over 90% of the farms and agricultural resources were owned by local Puertoricans. Within a few years, US tariffs required that Puertorican coffee had to be sent to the US before it could be sold in Europe. The 1899 hurricane and the adoption of US currency on the island was the death knell of Puertorican coffee production. US companies then began buying up land and soon sugar became the dominant crop, production increasing by an incredible 1200% by 1929 with 80% owned by US sugar companies. In the years between 1899-1929, unemployment went from 17% – 36% with ¼ to a third of workers unemployed most of the year. Eventually local food production collapsed and export dominated agricultural production became the norm. By 1940, 80% “of all farmland was owned by large corporations or landlords with 500 acres or more.” (Perez, 1976, pp. 6-7). Thus, during the Great Depression and up to the Second World War, Puertoricans were dirt poor, dependent upon the largess of the US for food and other resources amid a remarkable set of political machinations which mandated English, actually banned Spanish, and in open correspondence its overlords regarded locals as “mongrels” and “cannibals” whose “race mixing” as unsettling.
Growing during this time were a class of “pitiyanquis” (little Yankees), the “quislings” of PR who managed to ingratiate themselves to the US and benefit as minor officials in the local government, whose positions were always at the mercy of their obsequisness to their colonial masters. They morphed into the pro-statehood and pro-commonwealth parties who couldn´t imagine living without their connection to the US and whose descendants remain dominant in PR politics to this day. It is a classic colonial mindset Fanon would have recognized. And deplored.
But once upon a time there was resistance. The first was the independence strand within the Puerto Rico Union Party which also had statehood and local autonomy trends within it. After the 1917 Jones Act was passed, the Union Party broke into factions of which the Nationalist Party (formed in 1922) took the banner of full independence. The Socialist Party had left and right wing trends which eventually also ended up splitting into a Liberal Party (the left trend, fully in favor of independence) and a SP which joined forces with the Republican Party (founded in 1899 and assimilationist). It was the charismatic Pedro Albizu Campos who led the Nationalist Party into challenging the corrupt alliance of the SP and the Republicans and forcefully advocating for independence. However, years of suppression by the dominant US-backed local government leading to massacres, imprisonment, repression of Nationalist speakers, and finally COINTELPRO disruption of ANY independent movement all led to a conclusion many Puertoricans quickly absorbed: advocating for independence can lead to brutal suppression or even death. Joining up with the US, keeping one´s head low and subserviently accepting US domination of all aspects of life can lead to safety within the confines of a colonial relationship. To this day, this sentiment prevails, with emotional support for independentistas high but practical political support always going to the deferred parties of the status quo. No matter how many referenda are held, Puertoricans back down, fearing being cast adrift without help. Just like they are now.
