referendums held in Puerto Rico no relation Puerto Rico
The political status of Puerto Rico is that of an unincorporated territory of the United States. As such, the island of Puerto Rico is neither a sovereign nation nor a U.S. state. It is because of that ambiguity, the territory, as a polity, lacks certain rights but enjoys certain benefits that other polities have or lack. For instance, in contrast to U.S. states, Puerto Rico residents cannot vote in U.S. presidential elections nor can they elect their own senators and representatives to the U.S. Congress. On the other hand, in contrast to U.S. states, only some residents of Puerto Rico are subject to federal income taxes. The political status of the island thus stems from how different Puerto Rico is politically from sovereign nations and from U.S. states.
The status of the island is the result of various political activities within both the United States and Puerto Rican governments. The United Nations removed it from the list of non-self-governing territories in 1953, but it remains subject to the Territorial Clause of the U.S. Constitution. According to the Insular Cases, Puerto Rico is "a territory appurtenant and belonging to the United States, but not a part of the United States within the revenue clauses of the Constitution".American and Puerto Rican political activities regarding the status question have revolved around three sets of initiatives: presidential executive orders, bills in the U.S. Congress, and referendums held in Puerto Rico. U.S. Presidents have issued three executive orders on the subject, and Congress has considered four major bills on Puerto Rico's political status. Puerto Rican status referendums have been held four times to determine the desired political status of Puerto Rico in relation to the United States of America. None of them have been binding on U.S. Congress.
Internationally, several organizations have called for the U.S. government to expedite the process to allow self-determination in Puerto Rico while considering Puerto Rico a Caribbean nation with its own national identity. For instance, the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization has called for the United States "to allow the Puerto Rican people to take decisions in a sovereign manner, and to address their urgent economic and social needs, including unemployment, marginalization, insolvency and poverty."Distinct national group
Internationally
Though politically associated with the United States, Puerto Rico is considered by many other nations to have its own distinct national identity. Internationally, it has been reported that "the Fourteenth Ministerial Conference of the Movement of Non-aligned Nations...reaffirms that Puerto Rican people constitute a Latin American and Caribbean nation."Among Puerto Ricans
Although Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States classified as a commonwealth, many Puerto Ricans consider it to be a country in and of itself. In their book on American expansionism titled The Louisiana Purchase and American Expansion, 1803–1898, Sanford Levinson and Bartholomew H. Sparrow also determined that "Most Puerto Ricans consider themselves a distinct national group." They also observed that both Americans and Puerto Ricans see themselves as separate cultures—"even separate nationalities".At the local level, it has been observed that Puerto Ricans "consider themselves a territorially distinct national unit, a nation defined by its cultural distinctiveness". In recent plebiscites Puerto Ricans have not expressed themselves in favor of a political status with the intention of becoming a sovereign state, but the idea that Puerto Rico is a separate social, political and cultural entity from the United States has been repeatedly expressed.
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