Nydia M. Velazquez: “Mr. Chairman, Puerto Rico is a nation, a Latin American nation and a Caribbean nation. It is a historically constituted…”

“Mr. Chairman, Puerto Rico is a nation, a Latin American nation and a Caribbean nation. It is a historically constituted stable ethnic community with a common culture, a common history, a common economic life, and its own language, Spanish. But more importantly, there is a common psychology of a people who are unique in their customs, traditions, music and way of being. We call it Boricua. It is unfortunate that the sponsors of this bill have ignored this fact. Puerto Rico has been long recognized by the courts, Congress and international countries as being a distinct nation. Puerto Rico's special status as a separate nation under the sovereignty of the United States derives from an extensive history of legal precedents. The Supreme Court recognized Puerto Rico as a distinct nation when, in the early part of the century, it decided that Puerto Rico was in fact an unincorporated territory which never intended to become a State. Congress recognized Puerto Rico as a distinct Nation in 1917 when it extended U.S. citizenship to Puerto Rican nationals. This is a national issue which deals with the rights of the Puerto Rican nation to self-determination. The island existed as its own nation well before they were annexed in 1898 by the United States.”