The US has held on to Puerto Rico for a century, without giving the island`s inhabitants any representation in the US Congress or Senate.
There are three million people there now, more than Wyoming, Montana, Nevada, and Idaho combined, AFIK. They mostly spoke only Spanish, tho many nowadays speak English as well, and would take six seats in the Congress, probably all Democratic.
But the US doesn`t wish a second Cuba on its frontier. There are several other US "possessions" or "territories" with smaller populations: Guam, Saipan, Samoa, US Virgin Islands. District of Columbia. None with representation in the Congress or Senate. Yet we like to think of the US as a democracy. France and UK have such too.
Canada`s relationship with the Inuit, Pakistan`s (nominally a democracy) with the Pathan, Denmark`s with Greenland, etc. And there are plenty of regions within democracies where things are in some flux: Catalonia, Scotland, N. Ireland, the Basque region, Quebec, the Walloon region. |
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