I’m not sure what the official status is in Puerto Rico, but I still think it would change things. There are, of course, millions of Spanish speakers in the US proper. But they are not a majority in any state, and the expectation is that they (or their children) will eventually assimilate and learn English – the de facto, if not de jure official language of the US. If Puerto Rico becomes a state, we’ll suddenly have a majority Spanish state that will have no intention of becoming fully English-speaking in a generation or two. It would almost inevitably change the linguistic equation for the whole country.
As to the OP – Addition of new states should happen because BOTH the people of the relevant jurisdictions AND the US Congress agree that it’s mutually beneficial. Unilaterality is a non-starter.
Haven’t been checking out the IRS or Social Security Administration publications catalogue lately, then. Plenty of Federal Gov’t . documents are already matter-of-factly circulated in Spanish. Admission of Puerto Rico, where both English and Spanish are official government languages, would not have to require that “everything” have to be published in Spanish. The Congress sets English as its working language of record by internal regulation, the Federal Courts have English as legal language by law and Court Rules – in fact, the US Court for the District of San Juan works in English, though the Judges, Magistrates, jurors and most DAs are locals. Under statehood, PR can only officialize Spanish internally, as New Mexico did long ago, we can’t impose it on the Feds nor on any other State of the Union. If anything, the 38+ million Hispanic population of the whole USA would do more about that than the 3.8 million residing in the island.
BTW – there are plenty of flags already designed with 51-to-56 stars: they do NOT look like an undifferentiated bluish blur, they just look… indistinguishable from the 50-star flag unless you look real close. But then again, I suspect that after it got around 30ish or so states it has more commonly NOT been easy to tell by sight how many stars are on the flag anyway. (BTW, if I’m counting right, after 2007 the 50-star flag will displace the 48-star 6x8 flag of the World Wars as the longest-serving US flag)
According to the ever-fallible Wikipedia, Hawaii has two official languages, so there’s a precedent set. And yes, Puerto Rico would be the first state with a Spanish-speaking majority - but surely not actually the first meaningful geographic region to have such a situation?
Or…what JRDelirious said while I was fannying around with Google 
Actually, since 1900 except for a 1991-1993 interregnum of Spanish alone.
The insularity itself of Puerto Rico would work both ways there: it would make it futile to expect short-term linguistic assimilation of the population IN Puerto Rico but it would also make it unnecessary for anyone elsewhere to make any accommodations.
This is a good argument. And there’s a parallel with Gibraltar… It’s proudly British, more than just about any part of Britain, with the most recent vote on independence going 96% against, a result most dictators would be pround of. But it has its own dialect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanito
Interesting. But even if nothing would be legally required to become bilingual, would it be realistic to guess that there would be a much greater push for it to become so? Would Puerto Ricans travelling abroad expect to have Spanish speakers available at US embassies? I just wonder what the symbolic effect would be of having PR be a state. Again, because as things currently are, the onus is on those 38+ million Hispanics in the US to learn English*, whereas the primary language of Puerto Rico will presumably always remain Spanish, no matter what – and reasonably so. I’m not sure how relevant Hawaii is as a comparison – surely even in the '50s, the overwhelming majority of Hawaiians did not speak Hawaiian? That, admittedly, is just an assumption – but it is factually true that Hawaiian did not have the international clout or the mainland presence that Spanish does today.
*Is that 38+ million people of Hispanic descent, or 38+ million Spanish speakers??
If there’s a huge concern about the possibility of 3m (1%) Puerto Rica population demanding Spanish be provided at every turn, there’s similar proportions of mother-tongue Welsh speakers in Britain. Should a British consular representative ever encounter somebody who can only speak Welsh (they do exist, but they’re unlikely to be found in foreign prisons!), they’ll find a translator. In fact, the consul would probably find any translation necessary for a British citizen. Would the American response be different?
I don’t know; it might. That 1% of Welsh speakers is it, no strings attached. But the 1% of Puerto Ricans comes attached to tens of millions of mainland Spanish speakers (and growing), and they could change things for everyone. Spanish-rights activists would have Puerto Rico to latch on to as a sign of the permanence of Spanish in the country. (…Which, in the long run, is not a given. If Mexico and Latin America’s economies suddenly took off and far fewer Hispanics came here, the ones that are here would eventually learn English and Spanish would have a much lower profile in the country. This may not be likely anytime soon, but it’s a possibility.)
I’m not being alarmist, and I have no idea how likely any of this is to happen, but it’s worth considering.
Rodgers01, as of the 2000 Census, ( PDF File ) there were 13.8 million persons above the age of 5 in he USA whose native language was Spanish and had a less-than-fluent command of English. Here in PR IIRC the last time someone polled about English skills they came out with 20% fluent, 20% “some”, 60% none.
The post-statehod island-resident PRicans, if anything, would be extra motivated to gain better command of English so they can have better job/business/political opportunities. And Puerto Ricans are already US citizens, PR is already US territory, why would there be any additional pressure to get, say, an extra Spanish interpreter at the US Embassy in Brussels, AFTER becoming a state? Trust me, this population is already as filled with a sense of entitlement as it’s ever going to be. Sure, Congressman JRDelirious (D,2nd) may pander shamelessly to his base by asking for extra Spanish accommodations, but he would have to get that past 429 Congressmen and 100 Senators NOT from PR… and as for solidarity with our fellow Latinos, that’s not guaranteed by any means. Maybe island-Rican interests will NOT be the interests of SW Chicanos and Florida Cubans.
In any case… ** the USA as we currently know it, socioculturally, WILL eventually evolve into something different.** Whether it’s Anglophone or Hispanophone or whether it’s in this century or the next, that is contingent on future historic events but it will NOT remain static, Puerto Rico or no Puerto Rico. So I wouldn’t sweat the cultural-linguistic part of it. That will happen as it will happen whatever you or I try to do. After all, I am not writing this in Latin, Norman, Visigothic or Middle English… I’ll rather get busy ensuring the liberty, justice, opportunity and rule-of-law parts of the culture are the ones that survive as an enduring legacy.
This is kinda fun, here in PR if I want to defend statehood I have to argue with people that it will NOT result in English being imposed on us in everyday life, and that it will NOT lead the absolute annihilation of a distinct culture (… not any faster than it’s already happenning anyway; Mr. Nationalist may be wearing a Lakers t-shirt, eating a McDonald’s burger, driving a low-rider 'tuner, listening to hip-hop). Stateside I have to argue that WE are not going to be the ones shoving Spanish down anyone’s throat.
Further data: of the 13.8 million not-fluent-in-English Spanish-speakers in the USA, 8 million reported that they speak it “not well” or “none at all”; 5.8 million reported they speak it “well” enough to get by.
By comparison, the total number of people identifying themselves as Puerto Rican is about 7.6 million, half here and half in the States.
I do agree with that, which is why I do not use the word annexation. I believe in the peaceful expansion of US. I do not think that anyone in either thread has advocated annexation by force. They may have used that word, not understanding the connotation. The only circumstance I recommend such action would be in cases of failed states - of which Haiti seems to be doing its damnedest to acheive. An even then, that is only for stability purposes - after that, offer a PR type referendum.
It has worked now and then in the past, not as well as one hopes, but…
Yet each new representative increase the number needed for a majority to pass legislation. And again, new members of Congress will represent areas with different interests from existing states, not radically different, but they will have other priorities. I could see it as an opportunity for a third party to emerge also.
Why and how?
I imagine the existing parties in the new states would remain intact. They may merge with the Dems or Reps; they may not. I think they would have a stronger voice by not merging, forcing the rise of coalitions.
Semi-related question, could members of Congress decided to defect and form a new party, similiar to what happened in Israel? And if so, could they please do it soon.
Doubt it.
Too many (revolution-worthy) structural barriers.
Why not? (regarding making Israel the 51st state, in case anyone is wondering what this is in reference to)
The fact that Israel exists seems to piss off the Muslim world, and the fact that Israel is fully supported by the US just makes certain middle east countries more pissed off at the US. But so what? Could Israel’s enemies get any more pissed off if Israel became part of the US?
If it did become a US state, we could go ahead and move lots of US troops there and openly declare, “we have nukes.” Everybody knows they do anyway. It’s probably why Israel continues to exist at all.
Every Israeli I’ve met here in the States seemed to get along here just swell.
DUH!
So, why would it be a good thing for the U.S., to take on even more military responsibilities and commitments in the MENA and make them permanent?
What are they going to do? Declare a holy jihad against us and fly planes into buildings? Been there, done that.
Isn’t it already permanent? Israel already has a large military. Make 'em US troops. My whole life I can’t remember a time I haven’t heard on the nightly news, “Israel this, Palastinian that, explosions, death, blah, blah, blah.” I’m sick of hearing that shit and I daresay the US could handle it better. This is a Palastinian holy area. This is a Jewish holy area. Now knock the rest of that shit off. Who’s gonna seriously fuck with us on this? Russia? The EU? China? Do we really care what the Middle East thinks?