Why so many people refuse to accept that Puerto Rico is a country, a nation?

Question

I can't understand why people refuse to acknowledge that Puerto Rico is a latin american country, with it's own language, culture and more than 500 years of history. That Puerto Rico has it's own national anthem and it's own national olympic team and that the Puerto Rican nationality is recognized worldwide. You think this has to do with the present political association with the US as a self governing commonwealth (official name: Estado Libre Asociado {translation: Associated Free State
) ?

right, for instance the Puerto Rico team defeated the USA team in the 2004 Olympics in athens. Also Puerto Rico has had many boxing champions and 5 Miss Universe queens.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympics_2004/basketball/3567344.stm

It is true that Puerto Rico is not a fully sovereign country, but the UN nations recognize that a nation doesn't have to be fully sovereign to be a nation, sovereignty has nothing to do with nationhood as we all know, for example: Tibet, Palestine,Ireland and Basque Country and Quebec are examples of nations without sovereignty or with divided sovereignty (Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland= Ireland).
Puerto Rico was recognized as a country in 1953( General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV),U.N.).

Answer 1

Puerto Ricans can vote to do whatever they want to do over there, become a state or not. We are quite aware of the politics and culture of PR.
Why are Puerto Ricans bickering among themselves about who has the most and least Black blood. That is what Americans are puzzled by. The US is proud of being a melting pot.

Answer 2

It's not a question of accepting Puerto Rico as a country or not, it's what the facts are. Ms Adyari explained it very well with "Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico." I'm sure no one has heard Puerto Rico called "La Nacion de Puerto Rico" or The Nation of Puerto Rico, or if they have, it would be from someone "ignorant" as Hdz put it. The fact that someone born in Puerto Rico is automatically a US citizen should be proof enough that Puerto Rico is a not a country. The USA does NOT give out citizenship for free to peoples of OTHER countries. It is a commonwealth of the USA.

Answer 3

i think because they only get a small part of the story. has to do with the language barrier, americans can't read puerto rican newspapers or understand their tv, so we have a blind spot when it comes to puerto rico or any spanish speaking country as well
we only get the story from puerto rican inmigrants who may not be in touch with their homeland and most of the time they were not even born and raised in puerto rico (third and fourth generation of inmigrants) and speak broken spanish and street english. i got married to a puerto rican (born and raised there) so that is why i know a lot about this. also a lot has to do with the fact that Puerto Rico was a colony of the US between 1898 and 1952, many books were written during this period, books that did not want to acknowledge Puerto Rico's nationhood due to political reasons, the colonial regime wanted to make PR like hawaii but people over there refused the colonization process by a country with a different language and culture and at the end self government was granted.

Answer 4

I tend to disagree in some respects that people can't recognize peurto rico. I think to many americans peurto rico is a lot like france.

the facts
- peurto rico comes off as a subsidized 'territory', it saves huge amounts of money being a territory, tax wise, and through government handouts.

- it's own population doesn't really support it's own independance , that is a key

- I was given peurtorico by someone on MIRC so technically atleast one person recognizes Peurto Rico as one of 'my territories'., this may not be so signifigant. And I''m really not in support of a war of independance.

- I think that one of the reasons last I knew was that Peurto Ricans voted to remain part of the United states. As for nationality true peurtorico is spanish.. thus latin american.. they were handed off to the US after the spanish american war.

But it isn't wholely self governning, that to say guantanamo is as much a seperate nation as peurto rico, because the united states has a seperate jurisdiction, while cuba and or myself maintains soverignty. (the us doesn't seem to listen to either of us though..)

I personally think the olympics were never designed as a national movement, historically, until the age of nations and the rebirthing, and rather a personal movement, and think that anyone and obvious (it would end up corporations etc..) should be able to feild their own athletes as long as they qualify, heh, maybe even an al q. team would show up? .. Quebec itself has been termed a nation, will we now see a Quebec Olympics team?

anyway. I don't refused to acknowledge peurto rico is a country in it's own respect (an island country) , and it is a nation, but it is not a state. that being a nationstate/country, which so many other countries appear to be in some respect. Peurtorico does not have full powers as far as I am aware, as it's population continues to allow some rights to be maintained by the united states. I could be mistaken. But it still doesn't appear as it's own top dog, thus 'self ruling'. Once it stops being a us common wealth member (not likely) it will likely gain full recognition, as master of it's own destiny, until then specific powers seem to rest in the United States and/or me (for that one person).