Los Angeles Is Crying Out, and Puerto Rico Refuses to Listen

 

Here in the United States, being Puerto Rican isn't enough to be safe. One would think that U.S. citizenship protects us. That, because we were born with legal status, we are exempt from the fear that other Latinos experience. However, that's not true.

Just look at what's happening in cities like Los Angeles, where the Trump administration is trying to carry out ethnic cleansing under the guise of enforcing immigration laws.

You only need to speak Spanish, look Latino, or live in the wrong zip code to be targeted. ICE doesn't ask if you were born in Bayamón or Guadalajara. Here, all Latinos are the same: suspicious foreigners, even if we have legal status.

And the most alarming thing is that all this is happening in California, a state that was part of Mexico before it became part of the United States. A place full of Mexican roots that they now want to erase.

Although California is one of the states with the most undocumented immigrants in the entire country, immigration isn't an invasion; it's linked to its historical Latin American heritage. That's about people returning to what was theirs.

This ethnic cleansing doesn't use concentration camps but rather surveillance, raids, prisons, and even cages. Don't you believe me? ICE isn't just removing undocumented immigrants; they're erasing memories. They're trying to prevent California from resembling Mexico.

And while that's happening here, the Puerto Rican government hands Dominicans over to federal authorities as if that makes Puerto Ricans superior. Historically, Puerto Ricans grew up with the implicit message that Latin America was synonymous with poverty and that U.S. citizenship separated us from the rest.

However, the truth is different: when white extremists activate their hate, they send us all to Mexico. They don't even know that Puerto Rico is part of the United States. And if they do, they don't care.

Even so, many Puerto Ricans continue to rely on their citizenship as if that would be enough to avoid arrest. But our citizenship has no power against the structural racism of the United States.

American citizenship wasn't an act of respect. It was a military strategy. In 1917, the U.S. imposed it on us so they could send us to war. Since then, we've treated it as salvation.

The island's residents can't vote for the president, and their representative in Congress is symbolic, as they have no voting power. However, Washington's laws apply in their entirety, including immigration laws. And when there's a hurricane, a blackout, or a fiscal crisis, Puerto Rico is last in line.

So, what's the point of being a citizen if it doesn't protect us, represent us, or defend us while we live on the island where we were born and loved?

Every time an American politician insults Puerto Rico, when they call us a burden, corrupt, or simply ignore us, the same argument comes up: "Puerto Ricans have served in every U.S. war." So what? Did that save the island from federal abandonment after the hurricanes? That plea doesn't dignify us; it humiliates us. We look like patriotic beggars seeking validation.

While I denounce immigration raids on social media, I've received threats of being reported to ICE, even though both the Puerto Rican and American flags appear on my profiles. So, Puerto Rico isn't safe. What's happening in Los Angeles is not an exception; it's a warning.

I don't have exact statistics, but it's well-known that many undocumented immigrants who arrive in Puerto Rico end up traveling to the mainland because there are no additional immigration controls. So, the raids suit the Trump administration, which uses Puerto Rico as a valuable prop for its agenda in the states, not because it cares about the island.

And the worst part is that when Puerto Rico is no longer helpful to Trump or any other president, it will get a kick in the ass. And it won't be with speeches; it will be with cuts, abandonment, and contempt until the island gets the message.

And when that happens, it will be too late to wake up because, by then, we will have already betrayed our neighboring countries.