5 reasons Puerto Ricans are so incensed by Trump rally 'garbage' joke
Juan Garcia was a student at Amherst College in Massachusetts in 1982 when he decided to join the military.
Now 67, Garcia served 34 years in the Army Reserves, was deployed twice, dodged improvised explosive devices during combat in Iraq and retired from the Army Reserves as a colonel, all while graduating from Amherst, earning a law degree from Boston College and working as an attorney in New York and now Miami.
Garcia, born in New York City, comes from a Puerto Rican family with deep military roots. His grandfather and an uncle served during WWII, and two of his sons fought in Iraq with the U.S. Army. One of them, Jaime, was shot in the chest in combat and received a Purple Heart, Garcia said.
Puerto Ricans have served in every major U.S. military conflict since World War I, when the U.S. granted citizenship to Puerto Ricans so they could help fight.
But Garcia believes Puerto Ricans join the military not just out of patriotic duty or personal gain. As U.S. citizens who are often treated as "foreigners," Garcia believes they join because they feel they have something to prove.
"Many Puerto Ricans have joined the military and served in the military to gain acceptance and to be accepted," Garcia said in an interview.
So when comedian Tony Hinchcliffe compared Puerto Rico to a "floating island of garbage" during a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden in New York on Oct. 27, Garcia understood why there has been such an outpouring of anger from everyday Puerto Ricans and global celebrities like Jennifer Lopez , Lin-Manuel Miranda and Bad Bunny .
"It gets tiring to have to fight this same fight for acceptance of our personhood and right to be Americans, when we are born citizens of the United States on that island called 'garbage,'" Garcia said in an email.
Puerto Ricans are known for their immense pride, which they often openly display with Puerto Rican flags hung from car mirrors or with lively street festivals and parades in cities with large Puerto Rican populations.
That pride often stems from Puerto Rico's fraught history as a colony of the U.S. and Puerto Ricans' longstanding battle for acceptance, laid bare by the political uproar ignited by the garbage "joke" made about Puerto Rico at the Trump rally. In response, the Trump campaign has sought to distance itself from the comments.
"That joke would be offensive to anybody whose country was singled out, not just Puerto Ricans," said Carlos Vargas-Ramos, director of public policy for the Center of Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College in New York. "But the fact that it was made to offend (Puerto Ricans) makes you wonder what was the intention, not just by the comedian, but by the Trump campaign to allow this singling out and smearing and putting down of an entire country."
Here are five reasons the Trump rally joke hit Puerto Ricans hard.
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Puerto Rico is a colony of the United States
Puerto Rico was colonized by Spain after Christopher Columbus landed on the island in 1493. The island's first inhabitants were the indigenous Tainos. Puerto Rico is a mix of Taino, Spanish and African cultures, with the latter carried over by enslaved Africans.
Puerto Rico remained under Spanish rule until 1898, when Spain ceded the island, a key producer of sugar cane and military outpost, to the U.S. following the Spanish-American War. At the time, a push for independence from the Spanish crown had been boiling up when Puerto Ricans suddenly found themselves under U.S. rule.
"How did Puerto Rico become a colony of the United States? Well, Puerto Rico is war booty. Puerto Rico is part of the spoils of war that the United States won after the Cuban-Spanish-American War in 1898," Vargas-Ramos said.
The U.S. for decades operated military bases in Puerto Rico, including training grounds on Vieques where the Navy tested Agent Orange, napalm, white phosphorous and depleted uranium which advocates say caused cancer and other illnesses among the population. The U.S. ended bombing exercises on Vieques in 2003 after errant bombs killed a civilian Puerto Rican security guard in 1999, prompting massive protests.
Puerto Ricans have remained divided politically among those who still seek independence, those who would like Puerto Rico to become the 51st state and those who prefer the status quo as a commonwealth of the U.S.,
"Puerto Ricans of any political persuasion are very proud, but the fact that Puerto Rico is a colony of the United States makes that pride even greater," Vargas-Ramos said.
Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens but are often treated like foreigners
There are 3.2 million Puerto Ricans living in Puerto Rico. Puerto Ricans living in the U.S. territory can vote in presidential primaries but cannot take part in the presidential election. There are 5.8 million Puerto Ricans living in the U.S., including about 65,000 in Arizona. Puerto Ricans living within the U.S. are eligible to register and vote for president.
Despite the fact that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, they are often mistaken as foreigners or immigrants, partly because the main language of Puerto Rico is Spanish, not English.
"People forget that Puerto Rico exists within the purview of the United States, that Puerto Rico is a colony of the United States, and that the people from that island are U.S. citizens," Vargas-Ramos said. "This is because of the will of the Congress of the U.S.," which rarely pays attention politically to Puerto Rico.
"Puerto Ricans are out of mind, right? For the vast majority of people in the United States, they ignore Puerto Rico. They ignore Puerto Ricans. It just does not register until instances such as this (joke) or disasters such as Hurricane Maria or when Puerto Ricans decide to take their demands to the halls of Congress," Vargas-Ramos said, referring to the 1954 attack by Puerto Rican nationalists that wounded five members of Congress.
Puerto Ricans remember Trump's 'paper towel' response to hurricanes
In September 2017, while Donald Trump was president, Puerto Rico was hit by two catastrophic storms: Hurricane Irma, followed by Hurricane Maria, less than two weeks later. The back-to-back major hurricanes killed about 3,000 people, flattened neighborhoods, destroyed 80% of the island's electrical power grid and caused $90 billion in damage, the third costliest in U.S. history.
Video of then-President Trump tossing paper towels into a crowd of desperate Puerto Ricans during a visit to the island outraged Puerto Ricans and came to symbolize the Trump administration's handling of the disaster on the island. Trump also resisted sending disaster funding to the island, citing possible corruption.
"The way he saw fit to manifest his help was just to make light of the situation. He just began to throw paper towels as the primary item of need, of necessity, for people who were dying under his watch," Vargas-Ramos said. Puerto Ricans "saw that image of just the callousness and the obliviousness of the circumstances."
Puerto Ricans are proud of their contributions to the U.S.
Despite its small size, Puerto Rico has made outsize contributions to the U.S. that are often overlooked, Vargas-Ramos said.
"For such a small country, so many notable persons have come out of Puerto Rico relative to other countries of the same size and population, and that stokes pride in Puerto Rico and among Puerto Ricans," Vargas-Ramos said.
In sports, Vargas-Ramos mentioned pioneering baseball players Roberto Clemente and Pedro "Perucho" Cepeda; boxers Hector "Macho" Camacho, Wilfredo Gomez and Wilfred Benitez; and actors Rita Moreno, Jose Ferrer and Raul Julia.
"In popular music, more recently, you have Bad Bunny, and in the realm of science, you have had a number of astronauts as well," including Joseph Acaba and Marcos Berríos, Vargas-Ramos said.
Trump missed an opportunity to reach out to Puerto Ricans
Trump has attempted to distance himself from Hinchcliffe's comments.
"I have no idea who he is," Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity. "What they've done is taken someone who has nothing to do with the party and try and make a big deal."
But Vargas-Ramos said Trump wasted an opportunity to reach out to Puerto Ricans.
"He said those comments are not what President Trump or his campaign thought of Puerto Rico," Vargas-Ramos said. "Well, what does President Trump think about Puerto Rico? What public policy does President Trump want to advance on Puerto Rico? Does President Trump want to trade Puerto Rico for Greenland?" Vargas-Ramos said. He was referring to comments by Miles Taylor, a former Homeland Security chief of staff. Taylor said in 2020 that Trump suggested swapping Puerto Rico for Greenland before a DHS hurricane recovery trip to Puerto Rico in 2018.
Taylor told MSNBC that Trump said he wanted to trade Puerto Rico because, in Trump's words, "Puerto Rico was dirty and the people were poor."
"What are his positions on the reconstruction of Puerto Rico seven years, eight years after the hurricanes and subsequent earthquakes in Puerto Rico?" Vargas-Ramos continued. "What are his plans for Puerto Rico? That was a great missed opportunity for President Trump, and, I will say, for the entire Republican Party because we have to remember the sovereignty of Puerto Rico rests with the Congress of the United States."
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