|
|
|
|
|
|
RETURN
MIGRANTS AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN PUERTO RICO
|
|
 |
LEGAL AND POLITICAL BARRIERS TO PARTICIPATION |
|
|
Originally, as you saw in the title of the presentation,
this was called Return Migrants and Political Participation in Puerto Rico,
but in light of the current events -- we have a primary run-off taking place
today -- I decided it would be fitting to concentrate more on the U.S. and
how Puerto Ricans fit into the political system in the U.S. than exclusively
Puerto Ricans in the Puerto Rico... Although, I am prepared to speak to
that, I have my little transparencies so I can share those with you as well.
Basically, political participation is explained by modern political science by a variety of approaches. These range from the focus on the social characteristics of the population, such as gender, age, race and ethnicity, social economic status to the attention to the psychology or rationality of the members of the society in a particular political system -- their attitudes, their beliefs and values, their personality, etc. -- to how the political environment and the legal structure promote or discourage political involvement. But while these approaches have been available to the investigators, when it has come to the study of political participation of Puerto Ricans in the United States, the focus has tended to be on Puerto Ricans as a collection of individuals who, as a result of socio-economic status or their political attitudes and views towards the United States politcal system or their identification and consciousness as members of a particular racial or ethnic group, have exhibited low levels of involvement in the political process. Even when highlighting the impact of the political environment on their relatively low levels of Puerto Rican political participation in the United States, analysts resort to focusing on the attachment and overall attitudes Puerto Ricans may have towards the United States as the overriding reason for low participation. These approaches are very powerful and insightful in so far as they establish correlations between the social and individual characteristics of Puerto Ricans and their relatively low levels of political participation. But while they are useful in establishing such empirical linkages, they only present a one-sided account of Puerto Rican participation. |