B
I guess, um, we're assuming that, that Puerto Rico would be per capita significantly more poor perhaps than, than say Mississippi or,
A
I think so.
B
Okay, that's something that, that I guess I have not much of an image of other than, than Puerto Rico as a tropical island and consequently large numbers of barefoot natives or something not in a perjuritive sense but in a, in a carefree sense, I guess. Although I'm aware of the political problems and unrest, and, and also difficulties they have. Um, I don't know whether state woul, statehood would improve their economy. I don't, I don't know that the ve-, the act of being a state would have any impact on, on them. Uh, I guess they would have the ability to do some taxing that they don't have now. But of course if their economy is weak the-, there is not much of a base on which to tax. I don't know if they suffer in a sense of income loss as being, since they aren't a state, whether there are monies that escape them so to speak because they aren't able to tax like a typical state would be. How do you feel, though, about, well I guess it's to their advantage to be a territory, but, um, I wonder how have, having been in a territory but only as a young student and my parents were in the military at the time so they didn't have ready negative feelings about being in, in Alaska at the time since they voted absentee. I, I would imagine that it must be a little bit of a se-, feeling of second class citizenry, uh, to be in a territory that large and not being able to vote. The District of Columbia people, for instance are quite frustrated, I think, at times in their not having a Senate representative.
A
Uh-huh. Yeah, those, are good points, um, which obviously I had never thought about. Uh, I don't know, uh, I suppose they also, not being a state are probably freer to determine their own, um, ways of life than they would if, if, I'm trying to think exactly what is imposed if they would become a state versus a territory.
B
Uh-huh. Uh, I see what you mean, so that, Yeah, taxes would undoubtedly be occurring. Uh, there, I don't know, I don't even understand exactly how taxes are handled in a territorial situation. Um, frequently the laws in a territory are, are in some ways as stringent as they are in other states, I, and I'm thinking in terms of education. But then again each state sets its own and I don't know how a territorial governor takes care of something like Puerto Rico. Um, it's interesting because I haven't thought of them in terms of the problems relative to, uh, economy, uh, I had thought of it more in terms of political, uh, realization and I guess I had automatically made the assumption that, gee, anyone would rather be a state of the U. S. than an independent country so,
A
Uh-huh. Well, well actually I thin, one, one thing that I remember hearing in the news the past couple weeks that might be significant is that they've recently voted that Spanish is the official language, which I always assumed it was anyway. So, if they've just taken such action, it would seem to indicate to me either they're doing it because they're afraid they might become a state and want to declare this before they become a state, or maybe because they don't want to become a state for fear of losing the Spanish, or Hispanic heritage.