yes um i was wondering whether you were in favor of statehood independence or the status quo for Puerto Rico
i was a
resident although very young of the state of what is now the state of Alaska in nineteen fifty nine when Alaska stopped being a territory became a state
uh so i guess i have a left over
positive feeling about the question even though i don't know very much about Puerto Rico
um i know that all the things that happened relative to that territory in Alaska have been very positive uh and i kind have a suspicion that that i
believe that a that statehood is a good idea whenever you have a territory the size of Puerto Rico one ought either to make it a full-fledged state or or let it go one or the other
what is your situation
well i'm i guess
i don't have such such close experience with with um an area becoming a state as you do
um my concern is the economy because as i understand it Puerto Rico has a very low standard uh standard of living or at least um annual average income
um part of this i suppose is justified in in in that the climate they don't need perhaps the heating and the housing that some of the the more northern territories need
however in that case i guess i would favor status quo
i have been to Puerto Rico and and found it very very interesting i did Peace Corps training there
oh that's very interesting
and so um you know i saw it also as a young student and and it was very foreign in a certain sense although i had grown up in California and so the Spanish was no problem
um it was
it was you know very lovely and and the people seemed very friendly and and nice i have actually i work with uh
a girl from Puerto Rico and i guess i have never thought to ask her which she favors
uh
your concern on the economies was one in terms of if it became a state would that put even more pressures on on Puerto Rico or pressures on the US in terms of aid or
well probably more on in terms of the US
um
you know i'm i'm not quite sure how the US copes
with this sort of thing i've lived abrode abroad most of my life so
i guess i i've been very cut off uh i lived actually in Lebanon so i was very cut off from the
the press as i was you know
and uh becoming was becoming an adult so i don't know how the US would cope with it a
um-hum
new state that is so very very poor
um-hum
um i guess you know we'd have a lot of aid if if you consider the inner cities of
like New York and and how much aid it needs i suppose the whole country or the whole um new state would require such aid
i guess
um
we're assuming that that Puerto Rico would be per capita significantly more poor perhaps than than say Mississippi or
i think so
okay
that's something that that i guess i have not much of an image of other than
than Puerto Rico as a tropical island and consequently large numbers of barefoot natives or something uh not in a
pejorative sense but in a in a carefree sense i guess although i'm aware of the political problems and unrest and and and also difficulties they have
um-hum
um
i don't know whether state would statehood would improve their economy i don't i don't know that the very the act of being a state
would would have any impact on on them uh i guess they would have the ability to do some taxing that they don't have now but of course if their economy is weak that there is not much of a base on which to tax
i don't know if they suffer
in a sense of
income loss as being since they aren't a state whether there are monies that escape them so to speak because they aren't able to tax like a typical state would be
how do you feel though about
well i guess it's to their advantage to be a territory but uh i wonder how having having been in a territory but only as a young student and my parents were in the military at the time so they didn't have ready negative feelings about being in the states in the
Alaska at the time since they they voted absentee
i i would imagine that it must be a little bit of a second feeling of second class citizenry
uh to be in a territory that large and not being able to vote the District of Columbia people for instance are quite frustrated i think at times
in their not having a Senate representative
um-hum yeah those those are good points um which obviously i'd never thought about
um
i don't know what uh i suppose
they also not being a state are
probably freer to determine their own
um ways of life than they would if if
i i'm trying to think exactly what is imposed if they would become a state versus a territory
um-hum
perhaps compulsory education
uh i see what you mean so that
um
and taxes
yeah taxes would undoubtedly be occurring uh there i don't know i i don't even understand exactly how taxes are handled in a territorial situation
um
frequently the laws in a territory are are in some ways as stringent as they are in other states i uh and i'm thinking in terms of education but then again each state sets its own and i don't know how a territorial governor takes care of something like Puerto Rico
um it's interesting because i hadn't thought of them in terms of the problems relative to uh economy
uh
i had thought of it more in terms of political uh
realization and i guess i had automatically made the assumption that gee anyone would rather be a state of the US than an independent country
um-hum well well actually i think one one thing that i remember hearing in the news the past couple weeks that might be significant is that
so
they've recently voted that Spanish is the official language which i always assumed it was anyway
um-hum
so if they've just taken such action
it would seem to indicate to me either they're doing it because they're afraid they might become a state and want
to declare this before they become a state
or maybe because they don't want to become a state for fear of losing the Spanish or Hispanic heritage
uh-huh
that's interesting
well it sounds as though you are in favor of uh status quo
i i believe i would probably tend towards that
and i think uh having listened to you relative to the economy thing i think if i were being forced to make a decision i would plead ignorance and wait to do more research before picking one of these so i'm ultimately i guess i'm ultimately in favor of status quo also
well that's interesting
at this point
leaning towards uh statehood
right what about if if um they demanded to have Spanish as the official language
as a condition for statehood
i think i would be troubled i suspect i believe that any of our states and i i constitutionally i don't think there are any prescriptions about against that decision even if uh Louisiana chose to go with Creole or something
um
i don't think there is any prohibitions i would be bothered by that i'm i'm bothered by any tendency to resist what i think was one of America's strengths and that's the the the melting pot uh i i
um-hum
am particularly fond of a number of ethnic cuisines but i'm troubled by too close a clinging to to the the past and i'm also realizing that that a common language i think is the ultimate bond of a country
um
and Canada i guess comes to my mind as they're going through the throes up there relative to French Quebec and whatever uh that i i think that would be
a a negative step to make and i think that that they would need to reassess that
um
i'm troubled even in by bilingualism uh in so far as t hat it intrudes it gets in the way of of of the melting pot aspect
um-hum um-hum
that's interesting because
although i tend to be bilingual Spanish based on experience
uh
i was in bilingual education in California and
i didn't have any problem with my students but i noticed my
my brother who who was uh quite a bit younger
was learning Spanish in elementar y school and he can't speak a word
hum
and so obviously it didn't work in California
yeah
but i'm rather in favor of people being bilingual and i'd be quite happy to see a national law in which every student was required to learn English and a second language
right
right
but i'm i'm disturbed by a country that attempts to be functionally bilingual at the official level
oh i see
um
i'm i'm concerned about whether or not that causes fractiousness i guess
um-hum um-hum
well i think we have gone to time and i appreciate your having called
okay okay well thank you very much
good-bye
bye-bye
