Lest We Forget Our History

Remembering How We Got Here

BY VISHALLI ALAGAPPAN

On our way to the naturalization ceremony, I remember my parents exchanging giddy remarks about the event as well as the prospect of becoming a citizen. My dad joked of running for the presidential candidacy against Biden. But I was embarrassed by my parents’ excitement. This was not a big deal, it was just a piece of paper. As a legal well-to-do immigrant who grew up around predominantly white birthright citizens, I took for granted the importance of citizenship. All I was missing out on was voting and running for office, neither of which I placed much importance on previously.

The right to self-determination expanded from a select few to a majority of American residents since the dawn of this democracy. It has been a rocky road to say the least, especially for the indigenous people of this land. Native Americans were considered a part of the “sovereign” tribal nations when the 14th Amendment was ratified and thus denied citizenship. The Dawes Act of 1887 provided provisional citizenship to those who accepted allotments of their own land drawn up by the government and assimilated into white American culture. The Dawes Act resulted in the loss of two-thirds of indigenous land and the establishment of boarding schools that eradicated many native languages and traditions.

In 1924, President Coolidge signed into law the Snyder Act that awarded all Native Americans citizenship. However, this victory did not guarantee voting rights since the Constitution deferred to the states on who had the right to vote. Even when several of the discriminatory state voting laws had been contested, polling fees, literacy tests, and intimidation was used to keep Native Americans politically impotent. The 1965 Voting Rights Act finally assured Indigenous enfranchisement.

The 1920s witnessed the onset of political empowerment of various marginalized groups, and a century later, where does the United States stand on voting rights of all Americans? Although we have come a long way, voter suppression and socio-economic barriers are still rampant and disproportionately affect communities of color. Moreover, not all American citizens even have the right to vote in federal elections. Puerto Rico, a Spanish colony acquired by the United States in 1898, now dubbed a commonwealth, is home to millions of disenfranchised American citizens.

Puerto Ricans have their own constitution and local government but all their laws are amenable to change by the United States Congress to which they can not send any representatives. American imperialism has fueled the denial of statehood to Puerto Rico. Our government has absolute control over the economy and trade of the island, which the American rich use as a tax haven and exploit the native population for cheap labor. Living costs are astronomical due to the dependence of American imports or imports from other countries that must be transported by American vessels. Puerto Ricans pay taxes to the American government but can play no part in the determination of their own fate. Does this story sound familiar? The United States was founded on the values of democracy in response to autocracy. Phrases like “no taxation without representation” and the government was “of the people, by the people and for the people,” are hypocritically plastered across our history textbooks as we follow in our colonizers’ footsteps.

I draw the parallel between Native American suffrage and the current struggle for Puerto Rican statehood because both these groups have been stripped of their economic sovereignty and do not confer the same media visibility as other marginalized groups in America, which already is abysmal, and thus are woefully neglected. A poll conducted by USA today and Suffolk University reveals that 30% of people believed that the inhabitants of Puerto Rico were citizens of Puerto Rico and another 21% were completely ignorant of the citizenship states of these residents. There was a fierce drive in the twentieth century to fight for civil rights and the most essential civil right in a democracy is the right to vote. The right to vote awards an individual a voice in the destiny of our nation, the autonomy to shape their own future. The way the civil rights movement is taught in schools, it seems as if we believe that we have “fixed” the issue of voting rights. This is far from the truth. Citizenship and voting rights are as important today as they were a hundred years ago. Lest we forget our history, we may find ourselves in the past.