‘Advancing Statehood Through Policy Analysis and Academic Endeavor’

The Center for Puerto Rico Equality & Advancement (CPREA) shares and celebrates the same principles and ideals espoused by the founder of Puerto Rico’s statehood movement, Dr. Jose Celso Barbosa, whose image adorns the Center’s official seal. Dr. Barbosa believed strongly in the dignity and equality of representative republican government, the worth of the individual and dignity and equality for Puerto Ricans and Puerto Rico through statehood.

Educational Endeavor  

Our work emphasizes policy analysis, academic reasoning, and inquiry, inclusive of both conservative and liberal democratic thought. The Center considers as integral to its mission the support and development of forums and public discussion in furtherance of the statehood cause, providing the statehood movement a platform upon which to share its collective vision, mission, message, and objectives.

Statehood  

At its core, the Center affirms that only through statehood can Puerto Rico attain the promise of equal citizenship and with it, both the inherent rights and responsibilities of American citizenship. The Center fully adheres to this guiding principle, firmly established by Puerto Rico’s long line of pro-statehood forbearers, as well as the statehood leaders of every other U.S. territory that has attained statehood.

Patriotism  

We affirm that after more than a century of territorial status, statehood is the most sensible and equitable political status for the island, both for the good of Puerto Rico and for the good of its interrelationship with the citizens of the nation as a whole. For Puerto Ricans, who have served, fought and died valiantly for the nation without being able to vote for the Commander in Chief who sends them into harm’s way, the time has come for political and civic equality with their fellow citizens.

                                                                                    Give us a star

Over a country bright and free

Flies a flag of liberty,

Emblazoned with stripes of red and white

And forty-eight starts on a field of blue

Forty-eight stars one for each state

To signify allegiance and union fate

This emblem of the brave

Over another land does wave,

But, alas, no star shines brightly for them

For they are denied the rights of men

In their country’s rule to share as an equal

To make its laws and govern its people

Puerto Ricans love the flag too,

For we are Americans the same as you

But as we gaze at the forty-eight stars

None do we see that we can call ours

Why can’t the stars be forty-nine?

Let us share equal in the burdens of State

Give us a star on that rampant of blue

Full right as Americans in all things we do

Give us a voice in deciding our fate

Let us share equal in the burdens of State

Keep us not helpless with no voice of acclaim

Make us Americans not only in name

Give us a star so that no distinction remain

Between Americans here and those on the main

But that one indivisible people we be

United by the right of equality

Give us a star and God can attest

It will shine just as brightly on the field with the rest

- Pedro Pérez

1944