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PUERTO RICO HERALD License Plate PatriotismBy Frances Negrón-Muntaner |
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| No puedo decir que este sea el único lugar en el mundo donde se discute sobre las tablillas. De hecho, en este tema Puerto Rico es como muchos otros estados de los EE.UU. donde las tablillas contra la libertad de los derechos de reproducción o que muestran la bandera confederada, por ejemplo, han sido objeto de grandes controversias. |
So the only thing that we can really say is that mobilizing an entire country’s public opinion around a license plate that aims to celebrate fifty years of largely consensual colonialism is vintage Puerto Rican governance. And it’s only worth commenting on because it allows us to identify several trends in contemporary island politics — or perhaps more accurately, what’s left of it.
Or to lay it thin, if the plate could speak, what would it say?
"The state soy yo." The issuing of the license plate (once more) underscores how the distinction between specific party administrations and the state is completely blurred in Puerto Rico. Although this is not particular to the Island —the spectacular use of the state for financial and political gain under George W. Bush’s administration is glaring — many voters seem to accept it as a matter of fact, except if you happen to belong to the party out of power, and then your job is to repeatedly call out "error" — regardless of the situation.
On this regard, José Alfredo Hernández Mayoral’s claim that citizens have a right to be free from state-sponsored propaganda in the privacy of their garages or when leisurely crisscrossing the land almost had a revolutionary ring to it — if it wasn’t that Puerto Ricans don’t consider sleeping with the flag somewhat of a patriotic perversion.
"Politics is a spectacle." With the unhappy coincidence of the rise of mass media and the lack of an alternative political project arising from any direction, what we call politics is increasingly a matter of public spectacles concerning signs that have little to do with actual shifts of power, and can even be framed within the old-fashioned advertising lingo of "lifestyles." No wonder that Ferdinand Mercado has said that purchasing the license plate is a "very personal decision," not unlike deciding what kind of toilet paper, deodorant, or sanitary product you should buy at the nearest pharmacy.
Yet, what is equally mesmerizing is that even if there are a few good reasons to challenge the state’s initiative in issuing the license plate -- and here lies the discreet charm of virtual politics — those jumping into the fray against this moving target end up creating a spurious sense of participation amongst the spectators-consumers-voters, and hence ultimately legitimizing, rather than challenging, the status quo. For what would the "real" difference be if there was a commemorative license plate or there wasn’t?
"Nobody is home." While for commonwealth sectors the license plate seems to signify Puerto Rican autonomy, it manages to instead point to the Island’s double subordination to outdated Hispanophiliac notions of culture and American sovereignty by tidily pressing the Island’s three colonial symbols onto a slim sheet of aluminum: the seemingly unthreatening Spanish little lamb that nevertheless manages to refer to the glory that was Spain and Catholicism; the current imperial flag with its still wavering commitment to democracy, and the flag under whose prideful fold shame hides, the officially sanctioned symbol of Puerto Ricanness.
Strikingly, the license plate does almost as much work as that other notable image of commonwealth ideology: The Institute of Puerto Rican Culture’s emblem, with its Spanish Conquistador grammar holder, African (former?) slave drummer, and Taíno Indian with cemí in hand. Well, perhaps that’s one overpowering reason to do everything possible to stop the license plate’s uncontrolled reproduction.
I had always thought that the Isla del Encanto plate was somewhat sad in its wishful thinking. But at least you could have fun with it as the way that many users ironically refer to it — Isla del Espanto — attests. For the worst thing about official symbols is often not how oppressive they are, but the unimaginative ways that they literally bore us to death in their insistence to be everywhere and speak for all of us.
Frances Negrón-Muntaner is a writer, scholar and filmmaker. Her column, The Writing On The Wall, appears courtesy of The San Juan Star. She can be reached at: Bikbaporub@aol.com
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I can’t say that we’re the only country in the world that prefers to be a colony — Gibraltar has no desire to be free of imperial sovereignty, not to mention the rest of our cousins in the American archipelago, Guam, American Samoa, and the Virgin Islands. And I can’t say that this is the only place in the world that argues over license plates. In fact, in this Puerto Rico is a lot like many U.S. states where license plates against freedom of reproductive rights or displaying the Confederate flag, for instance, have been at the center of major controversies.