There is a joke about Ireland becoming the 51st state of America but now Puerto Rico will probably beat us to it. The House of Representatives has voted this week to let Puerto Rico decide later this year if it wants to become a state of the US of A, become independent, or stay as it is.
So just what is Puerto Rico and where is it? It is a Caribbean island in the sun 1,800 miles south-east of Washington and has been a US possession since it was forcibly taken from Spain exactly 100 years ago in the Spanish-American War. Since then thousands of the natives have emigrated to the US, especially New York, as those who enjoyed West Side Story will recall.
Technically, Puerto Rico and its 3.8 million Spanish-speaking people is a "commonwealth" of the US. Some would say it is a colony. The natives have US citizenship but cannot vote in US elections. They do not pay US taxes but were drafted into the armed forces in their thousands. The single commissioner who represents the island in Congress cannot vote either.
The island is very poor with 60 per cent of the population on welfare. It is more than twice as poor as Mississippi which is the state with the lowest per capita income ($16,683) in the US. So can the richest country in the world afford to absorb PR?
At present the island gets an annual federal subsidy of $12 billion. Statehood could cost the US taxpayer more.
Even more sensitive is the language question. The Hispanic population is the fastest-growing in the US and at this rate will be 25 per cent of the total in 2050. California and other south-eastern states could be majority Hispanic even sooner. So conservatives worry about a Spanish-speaking 51st state and mutter about a "Quebec problem".
Former Presidential candidate, Pat Buchanan, paints a Northern Ireland scenario of the US marines having to quell a Puerto Rican uprising if it becomes a state against the will of the nationalist movement there. Buchanan recalls that Puerto Rican nationalists tried to assassinate President Truman in 1950 and that they started a shoot-out inside the Capitol in 1954, wounding five Congressmen.
As the Hispanic population grows in the US, there is increasing controversy over whether Latinos should be legally obliged to learn English. Oddly enough, English is not the "official language" of the Union. It is just assumed it is and immigrants are expected to learn it fast.
But in practice, parts of the US are becoming bilingual. Even in Washington, the automatic teller machines ask if you want to do your transaction in English or Spanish.
The Republicans supporting the referendum Bill are being accused of "pandering" to Hispanic voters in the US who are now being wooed by both big parties. A Republican pollster, Frank Luntz, has identified statehood for Puerto Rico as an important issue for winning the Latino vote in New York in this year's Congressional elections.
The last time there was a referendum in Puerto Rico in 1993, some 49 per cent voted for the status quo, 46 per cent for US statehood and 5 per cent for independence. Those behind a new referendum, including Governor Pedro Rossello, are accused of loading the Bill to make statehood more attractive than the present autonomous status and of ignoring the dangers of the island's culture being diluted if integrated into the US.
If the US Senate approves this week's Bill, the Puerto Ricans will vote later this year on the three options. If they vote to become part of the US, there will be a 10-year transition period to let the island adapt to US standards in areas like education and English after which Congress will vote to admit Puerto Rico.
Opinion in the US itself is extremely confused on the issue. The two main political parties are themselves divided. The Republican leaders sponsored the Bill, as statehood has been official Republican policy for over 20 years. President Clinton also supports it. But only 20 per cent of the Republicans voted for it. The Bill scraped through by one vote thanks to strong Democratic support. A Republican tried to sabotage it with an amendment to make English the official language of the US and thus of Puerto Rico if it becomes a state.
This drew an emotional response from Patrick Kennedy, son of Senator Ted, who declared: "How often do we ask the 200,000 Puerto Ricans who served in defending our nation's liberty how well they spoke English? Why is it right now?"
Puerto Ricans contributed generously to the last electoral campaign of Senator Kennedy in Massachusetts, a Boston newspaper has reported. Republicans suspect that if the island becomes a state and becomes entitled to eight members of Congress, it will send only Democrats to Washington.
The unexpectedly tight vote in the House this week shows that the politicians are deeply divided and not just across party lines. Belatedly they realise that they are voting for a possible 51st state without really knowing what their constituents want or even what the Puerto Ricans want.
One Republican member, Roger Wicker from Missouri, warned that when the American people "wake up Thursday morning when Puerto Rico is well on its way to becoming the 51st state on the flag . . . they are going to say: `Why weren't we consulted?' "