The Center for Puerto Rico Equality & Advancement (CPREA) is committed to advancing a bold, innovative course of policy analysis, education, and action aimed at empowering the people of Puerto Rico to attain their full rights – and discharge their full responsibilities – as equal citizens of the United States of America.
The Center affirms that the end of the island’s current disenfranchised, dysfunctional territorial status is in the best interests of both the people of Puerto Rico and our fellow citizens on the mainland U.S. Through policy analysis, education, and advocacy, the Center and its members seek to help Puerto Rico and its 4 million U.S. citizens realize the full promise and potential of their beautiful island, not as second-class stepchildren, but as full and equal brothers and sisters in the family that is America.
“The issue of diversity and freedom, insofar as Puerto Ricans are concerned, is not whether they can function within the Nation, since 40% are on the mainland and 100% are already in the Nation. The real issue is whether they can thrive in a system which supports a separate and unequal treatment for their homeland; all under the American flag…the Nation must face its past, its principles, and promises.”
Carlos E. Chardón
Puerto Rico Secretary of Education
July 29, 1992
“We want to be brothers of the Americans, not servants. The deep discontent of Puerto Rico with the Spanish regime was because that nation considered us second-class Spaniards. We have the right to be first-class Americans.”
Eugenio María de Hostos
Advocate of the First Plebiscite between Statehood and Independence
June 17, 1899