George Laws Garcia wrote a celebration of Santiago Iglesias Pantin for El Nuevo Dia in recognition of Labor Day. Iglesias Pantin was a union leader and labor movement stalwart who became resident commissioner for Puerto Rico in 1934. “Iglesias, a Spanish immigrant turned Puerto Rican labor leader, understood that labor justice and civil rights were two sides of the same coin. It wasn’t enough to fight for better wages or working conditions; it was necessary to ensure that the people of Puerto Rico were recognized as an integral part of the American nation.”
The life of Santiago Iglesias Pantin
Iglesias was born in Spain, moved to Cuba, which was at the time a colony of Spain, and then to Puerto Rico, also a Spanish colony. There he founded and edited three labor movement newspapers and worked in the local trade unions. In 1901, he became the general organizer of the American Federation of Labor for Puerto Rico and Cuba, both of which were by then possessions of the United States.
In 1917, the year that Puerto Ricans gained birthright citizenship, Iglesias was elected to the Puerto Rico senate. He served in that capacity until 1933, when he became the resident commissioner for Puerto Rico, a position he held until his death in 1939.
Throughout his life, he worked for workers’ rights, for social justice, and for education. Many of the ideas he championed, including an eight-hour workday, the inclusion of women in labor unions, and the end of child labor, are now ordinary parts of life in the United States, but were bold departures from the mainstream when Iglesias brought them into laws he introduced.
His family’s foundation continues his work.
Did Santiago Iglesias Pantín support statehood?
There is no question but that Iglesias supported statehood. “We have rejected all formulas of a colonial government,” he said in a statement introducing a bill in Congress in 1935. “We consider this formula disgraceful and not compatible with the civil dignity of our Nation and, therefore, we proclaim the permanent union of the people of Puerto Rico with the people of the United States to maintain and consecrate socially, politically, and industrially a democratic community with the same rights and duties as any community of our Nation. We want and are anxious to be recognized as an integral part of the States of the Union.”
He had introduced the first Puerto Rico Statehood bill in 1934. “Iglesias knew that this victory [achieving citizenship] was only the first step,” Laws Garcia wrote. “Citizenship without full equality remained an incomplete form of citizenship. Therefore, in 1934, as Resident Commissioner in Washington, he introduced the first bill to admit Puerto Rico as a state to the Union. That bill, supported by the Puerto Rican Legislature, recognized that the granting of citizenship had been the beginning of a process whose natural destiny should be statehood, with full representation and rights.”
Statehood continues to be the logical culmination of Puerto Rico’s destiny. Tell your representatives that you want to see them on the right side of history.
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