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I also don't see anything offensive. To be sure, I'd like to thank the OP for introducing this thread and for addresssing some serious issues for the community.
If any group is not realizing its fullest potential, we all suffer - that group itself and society at large. Engaging in self-denial, feel good politics, it can't be true, pushing items under the rug, looking at fractional percentages - these will do nothing to uplift members of groups or segements of groups that ought to be able to attain the fullest offerings of the American Dream.
The OP rightfully expresses concerns, not in any mean-spirited way, but in an attempt to find answers and solutions to help the community. The answers are sometimes brutal and cold. But unless we all face them squarely, how can we even get to the starting point in moving forward?
Agree,
Also I think part of the problem is welfare.
Just like in Puerto Rico many people are in welfare and PJ(caserios).
This programs are good, in the sense that they help the needy, but also their have been studies(many done in P.R.) that they sometimes do harm also, and creat laziness in the community.
Once welfare comes to a point that is confortable, why get out of it.
This is a problem with many communities not only Puerto Ricans or Latinos. We need to educate this people, and make them want more then welfare also lower welfare to state that they would like to better themselves.
Like someone already said, Puerto Ricans come here and are full citizens, so they can go to straight to the PJ and get welfare, coupons, etc.
This is a good thing, to help them to better themselve, but not a good things when is forever.
The OP rightfully expresses concerns, not in any mean-spirited way, but in an attempt to find answers and solutions to help the community. The answers are sometimes brutal and cold. But unless we all face them squarely, how can we even get to the starting point in moving forward?
I agree with Miles, sorry I can't give him or Quelinda any more rep points right now. I thought all the post in this thread were informative, and well written, I did not find any offensive.
Having a mother that was brought up in Native American culture and having family that stills lives out west in the culture I thought the comparisons between Native Americans and Puerto Ricans in NY were right on target. You have some of the same challenges but there will always be some that will do well. As with any other group.
I wonder if the points about Puerto Ricans also apply to American Indians and Native Hawaiians, people that have been, how do I put it, been conquered. There are some sort of sociological and psychological barriers to achieving upward mobility in a culture that has been imposed upon them.
Although I do not think it the whole story, I do think there is something to that and I have mentioned it elsewhere on this board.
I would toss out the American Indians as examples. I would say that there is a common historical element between PR and Quebec in Canada. They are both spoils of war. The winner swallowed them, but they both exist in a "halfway house" of sorts as they are both nations within a nation. Hawaii has some relation to this as well.
The thing is, how long is "conquered" and excuse or explanation? All three have had a choice as to whether to remain in the US or Canada in Quebec's case. All three choose to remain, overwhelmingly in the case of PR and Hawaii. Is it a tough choice to go it alone and become like Dominica or Tonga or to be a part of one of the most succesfull countries?
And being conquered did not stop the Irish or the Germans from flourishing.
Moth: Just curious why would you throw out the Natives Americans. They were conquered and some suffer from poverty, and its effects like health issues and lack of education, or maybe its lack of education that results in poverty and health issues related to poverty. Either way it is similiar.
Moth: Just curious why would you throw out the Natives Americans. They were conquered and some suffer from poverty, and its effects like health issues and lack of education, or maybe its lack of education that results in poverty and health issues related to poverty. Either way it is similiar.
I just would not use them in this particular case as my example utilizes a model based on one "nation-state like entity" being swallowed up into another.
That is not to say Native Americans do not have an array of "issues" and so forth. But that is for another day. And sure, your points are valid and they could be compared somewhat, but I prefer not to in this case.
Of course, one could argue that a good chunk of Puerto Ricans are Native Americans themselves.
I see your point. However US Historians refer to Native American groups as tribes, while they refer to themselves as nations. That being the case, this would fit your model, of "one nation state like entity being swallowed up into another".
I see your point. However US Historians refer to Native American groups as tribes, while they refer to themselves as nations. That being the case, this would fit your model, of "one nation state like entity being swallowed up into another".
I see your point. However US Historians refer to Native American groups as tribes, while they refer to themselves as nations. That being the case, this would fit your model, of "one nation state like entity being swallowed up into another".
Splitting hairs on nomenklature.
When they were conquered, they did not have fixed borders or other attributes of what we call nation-states- the term I specifically used rather than "nations", which can take on many connotations.
Hawaii had a monarchy when the US grabbed it. It had borders- easy enough being a group of islands. PR was a Spanish colony which we grabbed after defeating Spain. The British grabbed Quebec (New France) after defeating them and it eventually became Canada. All had the attributes of a nation state or political entity.
Not so the Native Americans. Indeed, the reservations are artificial creations regulated by a combination of limited autonomy and a government bureacracy. Its not like the Navajo Nation will ever hold a referendum for Statehood or independance. But for the Puerto Ricans, its there for the asking.
Anyway, we digress. The OP is about Puerto Ricans.
Before the Europeans arrived to North America (Turtle Island) and after this part of North America became the US, the sections where the then new Americans, had not settled had boundaries that were set up by each Native American nation. The new Americans did not understand the Natives at that time, they did not recognize that they were official nations, and they also did not recognize their borders.
I do understand your point of view, I was also taught your point of view in history class. It is not totally correct. You must know all sides of the issues. However I will say this for your point of view, in the ancient Lakota way, if you were conquered, and captured, you gave up your language, and your ways, and you adopted and fully assimilated into the culture of your conqueror. So they would have accepted your point of view because it is the point of view of the conqueror.
Forgive me for not staying on topic this thread is about Puerto Ricans I just wanted to reply to you because of some similarities in Puerto Rican culture and Native American culture.
Before the Europeans arrived to North America (Turtle Island) and after this part of North America became the US, the sections where the then new Americans, had not settled had boundaries that were set up by each Native American nation. The new Americans did not understand the Natives at that time, they did not recognize that they were official nations, and they also did not recognize their borders.
I do understand your point of view, I was also taught your point of view in history class. It is not totally correct. You must know all sides of the issues. However I will say this for your point of view, in the ancient Lakota way, if you were conquered, and captured, you gave up your language, and your ways, and you adopted and fully assimilated into the culture of your conqueror. So they would have accepted your point of view because it is the point of view of the conqueror.
Forgive me for not staying on topic this thread is about Puerto Ricans I just wanted to reply to you because of some similarities in Puerto Rican culture and Native American culture.
I understand moth's take that the focus is on Puerto Ricans in NYC, etc. However, DAS is correct. The European conqueror came ashore and neither recognized nor honored the existing nation/state borders of each tribe. The Apache, Cheyenne, Sioux, Arapaho, Iroquis, Mohawk, and numerous other tribes did have their borders, perhaps not carved out on paper but certainly enforceable among the various tribes.
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