Puerto Rico Statehood with George Laws Garcia

Our guest today is George Laws-Garcia, the Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Statehood Council. A longtime policy advocate and consultant and native of San Juan, Laws-Garcia was tapped to be the organization’s first executive director to increase the engagement of Puerto Rico statehood supporters. George and I have a great conversation about the hows and whys of statehood, roadblocks and resistance the movement faces and the tension between advocates for statehood versus full independence. He is a wealth of information and an extremely thoughtful approach that I know you’ll appreciate. He doesn’t shy away from the dark side of the imperial and colonial relationship between the U.S. and Puerto Rico and some of the atrocities that those we are unfamiliar with our past might find surprising.

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Unf*cking the Republic (UNFTR for short) is progressive media organization that produces a longform podcast, YouTube videos, a twice weekly newsletter and original editorials on U.S. politics, socio economics and civil liberties. Our features attempt to explain how we arrived in Bizarro America, the funhouse mirror version of what was originally intended. You can access all of our work at www.UNFTR.com

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[AlfonsoPerezBorroto]

The majority of voters has supported statehood 3 times in the last 10 years ! #PR51 🇺🇸🇵🇷

[John-wlpg]

Please be aware that the Puerto Rican statehood movement is mostly a conservative movement. While its early history it was composed of people of all strides, since the 1970s onwards it has been a carrot on a stick movement a handful of elites used for the poor here in PR. To this day it is still very much the wealthiest of Puerto Ricans (and by using the same strategy, the poorest under "Estadiad para los pobres) who actually want statehood. It has a very long history of being a reactionary stance that has actively been against independence/socialist movements and had banded with right-wing terrorist gangs, the FBI, and the CIA, in an effort to suppress independence and left-leaning politics in PR. Since the 70s they had used the same rhetoric of the Civil Rights movement to comflate the Puerto Rican statehood push with struggles in the US, in an effort to equate assimilation to black and women's struggles in the US. Moreso, many pro-statehooders today align with Trump and his politics, showcasing how statehood is actually aligned with repressive politics (Jennifer Gonzalez herself, an adamant statehooder, that might be the next governor, is a devout follower). Puerto Rico was invaded, made a colony, had its capital extracted, used as a laboratory of all sorts, and is now under a US appointed Junta. We've had enough of the US in our affairs. No to assimilation. No to conservativism. NO to statehood. Let us be out own people. Viva Puerto Rico libre.

[josemarrero]

You say portorico we as Puerto Rico 🇵🇷 capich malaka.

[josemarrero]

Puerto Rico is not ready for statehood