Support for Independence Is the New Normal in Puerto Rico
The political winds have shifted so fast on the island that few have stopped to consider what this staggering change means for advocacy and action.
There’s been a lot of talk, in these Trumpian times, about not “normalizing” some of the worst words and actions of America’s president and his extreme MAGA movement. It’s all too easy, the thinking goes, to become desensitized to daily attacks on democracy and come to tacitly accept that this is just the way things are now. If that happens, we might forget to fight back.
But positive political developments can get “normalized” too. Once unthinkable changes can occur so suddenly, and new facts can establish themselves so firmly, that we forget to remark and reflect on them—and to adjust our views and expectations accordingly.
That’s what has happened in Puerto Rico, where in the span of a few years, the independence movement has gone from a single-digit, electoral also-ran to a political force that is reshaping the island’s future.
This is not exactly breaking news. I wrote plenty about the resurgent Puerto Rican independence movement in 2024—as did others. Much of that writing was centered on the electoral prospects of Juan Dalmau, gubernatorial candidate for the Puerto Rican Independence Party, who led a groundbreaking progressive coalition to a historic second-place finish in a four-way race.
Dalmau won 31% of the vote: the highest total ever for a candidate who supports Puerto Rico’s independence.
It’s hard to properly convey to those unfamiliar with Puerto Rican politics the enormity of Dalmau’s electoral performance. It did not exactly come out of nowhere; Dalmau had garnered 14% of the vote in 2020. But before then, no pro-independence candidate for governor had cracked 5% in more than 30 years—6% in 1988, and that’s only if you round up. None had surpassed double digits since 1956, or come in second since 1952.
I’ve often tried this analogy: imagine that Jill Stein and the Green Party had gotten a third of the vote and come in second to Trump in the 2024 election. If that sounds preposterous, well, not too long ago, so was the notion that an independentista could mount a serious challenge for the governorship in Puerto Rico.
Incredibly, Dalmau’s 31% wasn’t even the most surprising result on Election Day in Puerto Rico. The island also held its seventh vote on its political status, asking voters to choose between statehood, independence, and sovereignty in free association1 with the United States.
These status plebiscites, or referenda, are controversial in Puerto Rico. For one thing, they’re non-binding—since Congress refuses to sanction them or heed the results—so many Puerto Ricans treat them as little more than a straw poll. They’re largely used as get-out-the-vote stratagems by the pro-statehood party, not as instruments of decolonization. And in recent years they’ve been boycotted by the pro-status quo party (which objects to the so-called Commonwealth being excluded as an option) and the Independence Party (which rejects them as an electoral ploy), leading to low turnout and unclear results. In this latest 2024 plebiscite, more than 200,000 voters intentionally spoiled their ballot or left it blank.
Caveats notwithstanding, the results from last year mark a profound shift. Full independence and free association combined for more than 40% of the vote—a historic high in support for Puerto Rican sovereignty.2
This too is a massive political earthquake. For decades, since the bad old days of overt political persecution, support for independence on any plebiscite or poll had languished in the single digits. Now, more than 2 in 5 Puerto Ricans have affirmed that they want some form of sovereignty: whether it’s full independence or a sovereign status that includes a bilateral compact with the United States.
If the shift were only political, it would still be monumental. But the political transformations are both cause and consequence of a broader cultural shift led by artists and creators who are increasingly vocal about supporting independence.
At the vanguard of this cultural revolution is Puerto Rican megastar Bad Bunny. Unlike other celebrities, whose political timidity grows in tandem with their reach and influence, Benito (I feel like he’d be cool with us being on a first name basis) has only gotten more outspoken.
In 2019 he joined the massive protests that led to the ouster of pro-statehood governor Ricardo Rosselló and released a protest anthem alongside fellow pro-independence artists Residente and iLe. He continued to write politically conscious music, like 2022’s El Apagón; the music video featured a mini documentary about colonial displacement in Puerto Rico by wealthy Americans. All the while, he was telling national and international media that he wouldn’t sing in English and that it was important to shatter the myth that Americans were ‘gods.’
But his overt political activism ramped up during Puerto Rico’s 2024 election, when he spent hundreds of thousands on ads and billboards criticizing the incumbent pro-statehood party and its right-wing candidate Jenniffer González. He wrapped up the campaign with a historic endorsement of Dalmau and a performance of Una velita—another hurricane-and-blackout inspired political song—at the Independence Party’s closing rally.
Two months later, Bad Bunny rang in the New Year by releasing DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, his most political, anticolonial, and pro-independence album yet. In April, he performed songs from the record on NPR Tiny Desk. After an emotional rendition of his anti-statehood anthem Lo que le pasó a Hawaii (What happened to Hawaii), someone in the crowd yelled “¡Viva Puerto Rico libre!”—Long Live a Free Puerto Rico. Bad Bunny said it back.
Not all that long ago, supporting Puerto Rican independence could get you shot or thrown in jail. Now, one of the biggest artists in the world hasn’t just made it normal to talk about independence at National Public Radio in Washington, D.C. He has made it cool.
It’s no wonder that, according to polls in Puerto Rico, the majority of voters under age 35 already back either sovereign free association or full independence. With that youth movement at its back, the push for Puerto Rico’s freedom will only get stronger in the years to come.
How and why has this all happened? I’ve explored that question in other essays and will surely tackle it again here in the future. Other writers have also provided their own explanations, all of which rightfully center the intersecting natural, political, and economic crises that have battered Puerto Rico in recent decades.
But “how and why” will ultimately be a matter for the history books. For us, here and now, the more pressing question is “so what?”
You’ll be shocked, I’m sure, to read my answer to that question: the growing support for sovereignty in Puerto Rico should be a clarion call for people everywhere to join the movement for the island’s decolonization and independence.
That has always been the right and just outcome for Puerto Rico, whether 8%, 18%, or 80% of people support it. But it was admittedly a tough sell to ask people to support the stated preference of only a small percentage of Puerto Ricans. Now that there is a political force in Puerto Rico behind sovereignty, there’s all the more reason to embrace it—and fight for it.
Puerto Rico has been a U.S. colony for nearly 127 years. It is being battered by Trumpism. Statehood is a political impossibility. But independence is on the rise: a movement whose time is coming at long last, but that will only succeed with the support of all people—Puerto Ricans and Americans—who believe in freedom and justice.
Not to be confused with “Free Associated State,” the little-used but literal translation of Estado Libre Asociado, which is the official term for Puerto Rico’s current colonial status.
There was another bit of controversy with these results. Initially, it was reported that the vote was 30% for independence and 12% for free association. Weeks later, election officials claimed that the voting machines had somehow flipped the numbers for those two options. So the final results, as certified by Puerto Rico’s Elections Commission, were 58% for statehood, 30% for independence, and 12% for free association.