Washington’s Passive Torpedoing of Statehood

2020 ◽  
pp. 152-164
Author(s):  
Amílcar Antonio Barreto
Keyword(s):  
Bilingual Education ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Federal Intervention ◽  
Language Status ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
The Status ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Official Languages

This chapter focuses on recent developments in the language-status front. While the PPD has opted to leave the official languages issue alone, the PNP continuously pushed bilingual education as a step towards statehood. Furthermore, the PNP sought federal intervention in the form of a federal status bill which was patently designed to torpedo the Commonwealth option. Rejecting this proposal, Congress effectively threw the Commonwealth a lifeline. Unimpaired by congressional inaction, the PNP initiated status plebiscites in 2012 and 2017. Both used techniques designed to tip the scales in statehood’s favor. Congress has ignored both of their results. In a passive aggressive manner, the federal government has consistently favored the Commonwealth and has done so not because it particularly adulates it, but because it is the status that provides the US government with the greatest flexibility to control Puerto Rican affairs.

Restoring Official Bilingualism

2020 ◽  
pp. 123-136
Author(s):  
Amílcar Antonio Barreto
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rican ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Fluency ◽  
English Only ◽  
Clear Sign ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Status ◽  
Pros And Cons ◽  
Language Law ◽  
English Language Fluency

While the PPD methodically debated the pros and cons of official unilingualism their PNP rivals, who won the 1992 elections, restored bilingualism within weeks of taking office. The PNP’s rush became apparent when Gov. Pedro Rosselló announced the promotion of a new status plebiscite. As Congress took up the status question in 1993, PNP delegates flashed the new language law as a clear sign of loyalty to the US. That move failed to sway many federal lawmakers who repeatedly brought up the connection between the Spanish language and Puerto Rican identity, along with the low rates of English-language fluency on the island. At this juncture English-language activists from the US mainland began interjecting themselves in the island’s status debates during the English-only movement, reiterating the tight bonds between American-ness and the de facto US vernacular. Although out of office, Commonwealth supporters won the 1993 status plebiscite.

The Politics of Status

2020 ◽  
pp. 34-53
Author(s):  
Amílcar Antonio Barreto
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Puerto Ricans ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Of The Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Status ◽  
Political Party System

Puerto Ricans, US subjects since 1898, were naturalized en masse in 1917. Congress did so to eliminate the possibility of independence from the US. That citizenship is the cornerstone of island-mainland relations for those advocating a continued relationship with the United States—either in the form of the 1952 Commonwealth constitution or statehood. The epicenter of Puerto Rican partisan life remains the status question. This remarkably stable political party system featured two strong parties of near-equal strength—the pro-Commonwealth PPD and its statehood challenger, the PNP— and a small independence party, the PIP. A core feature of the PNP’s platform has been estadidad jíbara—"creole statehood.” In theory, a future State of Puerto Rico would be allowed to retain its cultural and linguistic autonomy while attaining full membership as the 51st state of the Union.

American Libraries and the US Federal Government: an overview of partnerships for enhanced resource access

2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (8) ◽  
pp. 2-6
Author(s):  
Bethany Latham
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Government Agencies ◽  
Government Information ◽  
Digital Collections ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Us Federal Government ◽  
Partnership Program

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the US Government Publishing Office’s (GPO) partnership program: what it is, how the GPO defines partnership, the types of institutions that are participating and the resources these institutions are making available through partnership. Design/methodology/approach – This paper reviews the available literature and information from the US GPO on its partnership program, examines the institutions contributing to the program and what those contributions entail, surveys the resources made available through these partnerships and examines how this affects access to government information. Findings – Partnership with the US GPO provides benefits to libraries, museums, government agencies and other entities, increasing discoverability and enhancing access to digital collections of government information and other resources. Originality/value – This paper examines the parameters of the US GPO’s partnership program, why libraries and other institutions might wish to partner with the GPO and the effect these partnerships have had on enhancing access to government information resources, an area that has not been extensively covered in library literature.

Puerto Rican shutdown would increase default fears

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Us Congress ◽  
Federal Intervention ◽  
Congressional Vote ◽  
General Obligation Bonds ◽  
General Obligation ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Government

Significance Puerto Rico is facing a severe fiscal crunch; its general obligation bonds are rated junk status and the government has said that a 2.9 billion dollar bond issuance -- at risk because of the congressional vote -- is required to prevent a shutdown in the next three months. Impacts There is little-to-no prospect of Puerto Rican statehood while Republicans control the US Congress. Puerto Rico would gain five representatives and two senators, likely to vote Democratic. However, this may encourage some Republicans to back federal intervention on debt, to ward off calls for statehood.

Canada asylum pressures may bring political friction

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Asylum Policy ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Federal Politics

Subject Asylum-seekers and Canada. Significance After an uptick in asylum claims in recent months, including via the United States, asylum policy is likely to feature more heavily in Canadian state and federal politics. Impacts New migrant flows to Canada will likely be triggered as the US government reduces its grants of Temporary Protected Status. Quebec’s government will face off against the Ottawa federal government over responsibility for new migrant arrivals. Ottawa and Washington will likely eventually update the Safe Third Country Agreement, but this could require bargaining. Canada may invest more in border policing and associated technologies.

Looking Forward

2020 ◽  
pp. 165-168
Author(s):  
Amílcar Antonio Barreto
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
American Identity ◽  
World War ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Fiscal Autonomy ◽  
Official Languages ◽  
The Cold War

Congress responded to news of Puerto Rico’s fiscal crisis by stripping the Commonwealth of its fiscal autonomy in 2017. Its lackluster response to Hurricane Maria the following year is yet another sign that Puerto Rico’s golden era has passed. That belle epoque—World War II through the Cold War— marks the half-century period when Washington cared about Puerto Rico, though only to display it as its showcase for democracy. Its current apathy is indicative of a federal government that continues to racialize islanders and non-white citizens as second-class in violation of the classic Civic Creed. While the statehood movement counted on the creed’s sincerity, its status rivals knew or suspected it was a thin veneer. In many respects, the fight over official languages in Puerto Rico has as much to say about American identity as it does Puerto Rican identity.

Digging Up a Painful Past

2021 ◽  
pp. 55-84
Author(s):  
Omar G. Encarnación
Keyword(s):  
Public Relations ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Military Personnel ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Federal Employees ◽  
Us Congress ◽  
Briefing Paper ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government

This chapter talks about the Mattachine Society of Washington, DC, an organization that takes its name from the pioneering gay rights organization of the pre-Stonewall era. It looks at Charles Francis, the president of the Mattachine Society and a leading figure among American gay rights activists, who was a former Republican public relations consultant from Texas with close personal ties to the Bush family. It also discusses Francis’s activism aimed at securing an acknowledgment and apology from the US Congress for discriminatory actions taken by the federal government against LGBT Americans. This chapter analyses the Mattachine Society’s briefing paper “America’s Promise of Reconciliation and Redemption: The Need for an Official Acknowledgment and Apology for the Historic Government Assault on LGBT Federal Employees and Military Personnel,” and it emphasizes the mission of the new Mattachine Society on adjusting the legal struggle to secure an apology from the US government.

An overview of translanguaging

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna M. Beres
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Bilingual Education ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
The Us ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Language And Education ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Traditional Approaches

Over the last two decades, with the increasing bilingual population across the globe, it has become clear that we need to develop new approaches to language and education. Translanguaging is a term that was originally coined in Wales to describe a kind of bilingual education in which students receive information in one language, for example English, and produce an output of their learning in their second language, for example Welsh. Since then, scholars across the globe have developed this concept and it is now argued it is the best way to educate bilingual children in the 21st century. The present article offers an overview of translanguaging from its origins in Wales to recent developments in the UK and the US. It first presents the traditional approaches to bilingualism in education, which viewed the first and second language as separate entities. Next, it explores how bilingual education can be transformed through the use of translanguaging and outlines current research in the UK. Finally, it proposes some avenues for future studies.

The Position of the Slovenes in Austria: Recent Developments in Political (and other) Attitudes

1999 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Priestly
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Bilingual Education ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Minority Rights ◽  
Provincial Government ◽  
Primary Level ◽  
Full Support ◽  
Weekly Newspapers ◽  
Recent Developments

The Slovene-speaking minority in Austria—when compared with many other linguistic minorities in Europe—is in an enviable position. Superficially, its minority rights are both constitutionally guaranteed and, for the most part, legally enforced; in the province of Carinthia/Kärnten/Koroška (the home of nearly all the minority; see Map 1) bilingual education is available in many communities at the primary level, and there is a thriving bilingual secondary school; Slovene is officially used in many offices and churches, and can be heard in many shops and on many street corners; there are two weekly newspapers. The picture below the surface is not quite as pleasant: there is anti-Slovene discrimination in several forms, and the pressure on minority members to Germanize themselves is strong; in particular, it must be emphasized that although the minority enjoys virtually full support from the federal government in Vienna, the provincial government in Carinthia has seldom been as favorably disposed. Still, most of the other minorities in Central and Eastern Europe can only dream of living in conditions like those of the Carinthian Slovenes.

Partisan Politics and Congressional Election Prospects: Evidence from the Iowa Electronic Markets

2015 ◽  
Vol 48 (04) ◽  
pp. 573-578
Author(s):  
Joyce E. Berg ◽  
Christopher E. Penney ◽  
Thomas A. Rietz
Keyword(s):  
Affordable Care Act ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Electronic Markets ◽  
Partisan Politics ◽  
Patient Protection ◽  
The Us ◽  
Political Impact ◽  
Us Government ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Government

ABSTRACTUsing the Iowa Electronic Markets (IEM), this article assesses the political impact of several important events during the fall of 2013: the US government shutdown, the Senate elimination of filibusters for presidential nominations (i.e., the “nuclear option”), and the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (i.e., ObamaCare). Did these events have meaningful effects on congressional control prospects in the 2014 election? According to IEM price changes, Republican chances fell dramatically when the government shut down, and they did not recover on resolution. Eliminating filibusters had a negative impact on Democratic chances. Various aspects of the ObamaCare rollout and reporting, as well as new announcements that incumbents would not run for reelection, had little effect. In contrast, the budget resolution reinforced the status quo. Overall, political rhetoric does not appear to affect congressional control prospects. Instead, actions matter: deliberate partisan actions of Congress adversely affect the initiating party’s prospects, whereas bipartisan initiatives help the party that initiates the bipartisan effort.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document