Clinton Empathizes With Puerto Rican Family on Memorial Day

Writing for the Caucus (NY Times), Larry Rohter provides a little background information for his coverage of Hillary Clinton’s campaign on Memorial Day in Bayamon, Puerto Rico:

“Traditionally, Puerto Ricans have both served in the Armed Forces and died in combat in numbers disproportionate to their share of the population. So it rankles many on the island that, even as their sons and daughters are serving with distinction in Iraq and Afghanistan, they do not enjoy all of the same rights and privileges of citizenship as other Americans.”

Rohter gives Clinton credit for her awareness of that sentiment picked up from conversations with former governor Carlos Romero Barcelo and others. Rohter reports that Clinton reiterated her opposition to the Iraq War and promised a better deal for veterans if she is elected president.

At the home of a family whose son has been deployed to Iraq, Rohter says Clinton’s message was clear despite the language barrier:

‘“When I’m president, we will begin ending the war in Iraq, and you won’t have to worry about him going back,’ she told the couple after they showed her a picture of their son in his uniform. Mr. Rivera, a 59-year-old maintenance worker at a neighborhood recreation center, explained that the young man had enlisted right out of high school because good jobs are scarce here, and threw a compliment Mrs. Clinton’s way.

‘“You don’t get old, you know,’ he said. Mrs. Clinton laughed, turned to Ms. Santiago and said: ‘No wonder you married him.”’

Noting that Puerto Ricans living on the mainland have the right to vote in presidential elections, but the 4 million people living in Puerto Rico do not, Mrs. Clinton said it made her unhappy that “when Jonathan Rivera’s military service ends and he returns home, he will relinquish the possibility of voting for president.”

According to Rohter’s report, Clinton was scheduled to make remarks with a Memorial Day theme and to lay a wreath in Old San Juan to the Puerto Rican soldiers who have fallen while fighting America’s wars.