Residents say a speaker calling Puerto Rico garbage before a packed Donald Trump rally in New York was the latest humiliation for an island territory that has long suffered from mistreatment.

Puerto Ricans cannot vote in general elections despite being U.S. citizens, but they can exert a powerful influence with relatives on the mainland. Phones across the island of 3.2 million people were ringing minutes after the speaker derided the U.S. territory Sunday night, and they still buzzed Monday.

Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris is competing with Trump to win over Puerto Rican communities in Pennsylvania and other swing states. Shortly after stand-up comic Tony Hinchcliffe said that, “I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” Puerto Rican reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny announced he was backing Harris.

After Sunday’s rally, a senior adviser for the Trump campain, Danielle Alvarez, said in a statement that Hinchcliffe’s joke did “not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”

  • mitchty@lemmy.sdf.org
    22·
    2 months ago

    Man when I went to pr for a quick vacation the amount of people asking about passports floored me. I was like it’s a us territory how have you not learnt that in school?

    Also I got lots of local pr Spanish slang, they’re chill peeps and mofongo is the best. I think they should get statehood they’re bigger in population than the state I grew up in and it would be nice to shake up us politics with more senate seats.

      • mitchty@lemmy.sdf.org
        2·
        2 months ago

        Amen to that! I was worried I’d get fat in pr, but ended up losing weight. Maybe I should move…

      • ElCrusher@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        4·
        2 months ago

        The last time there was a plebiscite in 2020, voting on whether to become a state or not, the outcome was for statehood by 52.34%.

          • ElCrusher@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            3·
            2 months ago

            It hasn’t moved forward because Congress has to approve it. Just because Puerto Rico wants to be a state doesn’t mean they’ll be instantly let into the Union. Here’s a link to the voting results. Its in Spanish since it’s from the biggest newspaper on the island.

      • mitchty@lemmy.sdf.org
        3·
        2 months ago

        It’s not forced, every state was a territory and chose to become a state. That’s the prescribed way for this to go. Why do we want to change that now? Part of statehood also changes things like federal aid etc as you’ll now be paying federal taxes but a part of this representation involves all this extra.

        • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
          2·
          2 months ago

          I’m not suggesting we change it. Puerto Rico has held votes on whether to become a state, and traditionally voted no. That’s all the reason I need to let them stay a territory.

          I’m not opposed to them becoming a state if they want, another commenter told.me the latest vote was ‘yes’ by a narrow margin so who knows what will happen next.