During a rally for former president Donald Trump Sunday in New York, a comedian called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” during his set. The comic, Tony Hinchcliffe, was one of the speakers invited to the Madison Square Garden event.
Since then, many Puerto Ricans in Michigan have reacted to the joke, calling it xenophobic and hateful.
“They talk about this country being garbage, but the U.S has been in control of Puerto Rico since 1898,” said East Lansing resident Francisco Velazquez. “So over 100 years of colonialism.”
Even though Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens and subject to federal laws, they lack full congressional representation.
“It's not simply just the fact that they have these very negative portrayals of Puerto Ricans and Puerto Rico, but also the fact that they just flat out don't know what they're talking about,” added Velazquez. “And yet you have the audacity to use this language at a rally with thousands of people; that that sort of ignorance is an added layer to it.
In an interview with Fox New’s host Sean Hannity following the Sunday rally, Trump said: ‘I have no idea who he is’ in reference to Hinchcliffe.
Delia Fernandez-Jones lives in the mid-Michigan region and is from both Puerto Rico and Mexico. She’s said she's frustrated that while the joke has spurred conversations from both Democrats and Republicans about Puerto Rico, little had been done from either party to make the territory better.
“That's the whole reason I'm in Michigan and that’s why we have a diaspora of Puerto Ricans is because of U.S policy that has deprived them of any chance at autonomy and has created disaster effects on the economy that people had to leave to survive,” she said.
Since 2012, Puerto Rico’s Act 20 and 22, together known as Act 60, is meant to encourage U.S.-based individuals to invest in the island while receiving 100% tax emption on dividends from earnings and profits and pay 4% tax on export services.
To qualify for the exemptions, investors must live in Puerto Rico for 183 days a year, consider the island their “tax home” and be able to show a “closer connection” to the U.S. territory than somewhere else in the continental U.S.
In 2021, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced a campaign to investigate those who may be taking advantage of the tax breaks. Even though there have been instances of individuals being charged of committing fraud by using Puerto Rico’s tax laws to evade federal taxes, some have criticized the IRS for not investigating cases of fraud properly.
“This continual treatment of Puerto Ricans as non-humans, as garbage but coveting the island for beaches, sugar, higher tax incentives for different companies is part of the colonial logic that these people are not worth anything,” said Fernandez-Jones.
Both Velazquez and Fernandez-Jones said they would like to see the U.S. government make more of an effort to ensure Puerto Rican’s economic sustainability on the island.
Puerto Ricans are not able to vote in the U.S. presidential elections if they reside in the U.S. territory.
