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a nonvoting delegate), could not vote in US national elections, and were still being drafted
into the US Armed Forces to fight alongside young Americans in foreign wars.
Over the years a number of referenda and plebiscites have been held, ostensibly to allow
the Puerto Rican people to decide the future of the island's status. Two official plebiscites,
in 1967 and 1993, resulted in victories for 'commonwealth' status, that is, the ELA. Other
votes have been held, with the status options, as well as the approach to self-determination,
defined in different ways. All of these popular votes have been shaped by the ruling party
at the time of the vote, either the pro-ELA PPD, or the pro-statehood Partido Nuevo Pro-
gresista (PNP; New Progressive Party). None of the plebiscites held over the years have
been binding for the US Congress.
A popular vote in 1990 making Spanish the official language in Puerto Rico was revoked just two years later to reinstate both
Spanish and English as joint commonwealth languages.
In 1998, as the island was getting ready to mark the 100th anniversary of US control,
another attempt to address the issue came in the form of a bill introduced by Alaskan Re-
publican Don Young. For the first time, Congress acknowledged that the current status was
no longer viable. The Young Bill called for a plebiscite on the island where Puerto Ricans
would vote on only two status options: either statehood or independence. It did not provide
ELA or any other form of 'enhanced commonwealth' as an option, angering members of
the PPD. Ultimately, the Young Bill went nowhere. While it was approved in the House by
a narrow margin, the Senate never seriously considered it.
In 2010, Congress again took up interest in the constitutionality of Puerto Rico's status,
in a complicated set of procedures that would allow Puerto Ricans to again vote to continue
or change their political relationship with the US. A congressional task force recommended
the vote take place in 2012 and that the congress and president enact legislation based on
the results of the vote.
TIMELINE
2000 BC
Puerto Ferro Man, a native from the Ortoiroid culture that had migrated north from
the Orinoco basin in present-day Venezuela, lives on the island of Vieques.
430-250 BC
The Ortoiroids are displaced by the Saladoids, a horticultural people skilled at pot-
tery. Saladoids laid the early building blocks for a singular Caribbean culture.
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