I am Puerto Rican, and I am tired.
When comedian Tony Hinchcliffe joked Sunday that Puerto Rico was “a floating island of garbage” at the start of a Donald Trump rally at Madison Square Garden, I was not surprised.
I knew this was just the latest example of a risible American tradition: using “comedy” to insult Puerto Ricans. It’s raw and insulting.
Puerto Ricans have heard these kinds of excuses and apologies before.
Much of the coverage of Hinchcliffe’s racism has been focused on next week’s presidential election. The Trump campaign quickly distanced itself, saying, “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.” Hinchcliffe tried to backtrack almost immediately by saying that he vacations in Puerto Rico and loves the island.
Puerto Ricans have heard these kinds of excuses and apologies before. The fact is that Hinchcliffe was at that Trump rally, and anyone trying to spin it any other way just doesn’t get it and never will.
Vice President Kamala Harris made sure Monday to connect Hinchcliffe to the former president, saying: “This is not new about [Trump], by the way. What he did last night was not a discovery. It is just more of the same and maybe more vivid than usual.” Harris and her team hope the remark will redound to their advantage. The campaign’s plan for Puerto Rico went public the same day as Hinchcliffe’s failed comedy routine.
The disaster of Hurricane Maria and the Trump administration’s botched response has prompted Puerto Ricans to be more vocal about their role in the American political system. About 500,000 Puerto Ricans live in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. During Trump’s rally, music superstar Bad Bunny endorsed Harris — joining other Puerto Rican celebrities like Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin — and shared her newly announced proposals for the island on his social media accounts.
The Harris campaign is doing what campaigns do. But viewing Hinchcliffe’s words merely through a political lens misses the bigger picture. Puerto Rico, a spoil of an American war victory from 1898, still has a complicated colonial relationship with the U.S. In the 19th century, images mocking backward Puerto Ricans as savages were the norm in the U.S. Things have barely changed since: To other Americans, Puerto Ricans have always been seen as dirty, backward, ignorant and second-class citizens.
Nothing has really changed when it comes to respecting Puerto Ricans for who they are.
It’s as if Puerto Ricans have never been extricated from the “West Side Story” stereotypes of the late 1950s when the Broadway smash became the defining image of Puerto Ricans for most Americans. Puerto Rican characters singing “Puerto Rico, you dirty island…” has always been wrong. Even as the musical went through some more modern revisions to clean it up a bit, the damage was already done. The prejudicial portrayal has never left the American cultural lexicon. For as long as I can remember, “jokes” about us Puerto Ricans have always failed. Americans never seem to learn.
In 1998, during the final season of “Seinfeld,” NBC had to apologize for an episode in which the character Cosmo Kramer burned a Puerto Rican flag because the city’s Puerto Rican Day Parade was causing too much traffic. (NBC and MSNBC are both owned by NBC Universal.) The backlash from Puerto Ricans was swift. In fact, that episode was removed from the syndicated show’s TV schedule, though sadly it is today available to stream on Netflix.
In 2012, Puerto Rican activists expressed fury at the ABC sitcom “Work It,” when Puerto Rican actor Amuary Nolasco’s character said, “I’m Puerto Rican. I would be great at selling drugs.” Eventually, the show was canceled.
Puerto Ricans are still working to call out those who continue to disparage us. And we’re exhausted. Nothing has really changed when it comes to respecting Puerto Ricans for who they are and what they have done to contribute to American democracy, even when that very same democracy has perpetuated a relationship that might offer us American citizenship but still keeps us a colony.
This is not about how many Puerto Ricans have died in wars for American causes or how some of the country’s biggest celebrities are Puerto Rican.
There is something deeper here that we, as Americans, do not want to confront.
More than 125 years after the American empire conquered their island, Puerto Ricans are still a punch line. The Trump campaign would love for this to all go away, while the Harris campaign will use it to get out more Boricua voters. But this is much bigger than Republican or Democratic support and who will win Puerto Rican voters in 2024. Both parties have perpetually supported a colonial system that has done little to improve Puerto Rico’s fortunes. For too long, other Americans have thought of Puerto Ricans as a joke. Now, we’re demanding respect.
Julio Ricardo Varela is the founder of "The Latino Newsletter" and co-editor of "Pressing Issues from Free Press."