Thank you so much for asking. I have a deep appreciation for the U.S.. Though born in Puerto Rico, I spent 10 of my first 11 years and later 10 more living in several States. But Puerto Rico is my country, the nation in my heart. Only once in its 500+ year history has it had any form of autonomy: a 3-month period in 1898 that ended with the U.S. takeover. We are a talented, passionate people with extensive achievements, but we've never had the chance to develop our country and whatever resources we may have in our own way. It's as if we've lived an extensive childhood or adolescence, and I believe it's time we grew up, stood on our own two feet and forged our destiny.

We may fail. We may even fail miserably. But success is guaranteed to no entity that takes on a supreme challenge. The only guarantee is that if we never try, if we never get the chance, we will never really know what we can do.

Sadly, I am in a tiny minority amongst my own people. That will almost certainly be the biggest obstacle to becoming our own nation. I hope I'm wrong.

Thank you again.

No no no no no. I hope I made my point. We didn't have a majority vote for statehood, we had a majority vote AGAINST the current status and a 45% vote supporting the idea of statehood for Puerto Rico. The trick pulled by the statehood party (one of many) was saying 61% voted for statehood, but that percentage came from a much-reduced pool of votes (about 74%) rather than the true total. When you look at the numbers, you get 45% and nothing more.

That isn't a majority and in fact, is a decrease from an earlier plebiscite, which like all of these electoral farces, was non-binding. Like it has before, Congress doesn't have to do anything with this and given the sub-50% "support", most likely won't even discuss the matter beyond the bare minimum to table it.

One would think that in the midst of the avalanche of political lies We just endured, this lie would be much easier to pick off. Then again, it did lead to some cheeky redesigns of the U.S. flag, so it ain't all bad.