MAGA comedian Tony Hinchcliffe's Puerto Rican “jokes” are just the tip of the iceberg

I'm Puerto Rican and tired.

When comedian Tony Hinchcliffe joked that Puerto Rico was “a floating island of trash” at the start of a Donald Trump rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, I wasn't surprised.

I knew this was just the latest example of a ridiculous American tradition: using “comedy” to insult Puerto Ricans. It's gross and offensive.

Much of the coverage of Hinchcliffe's racism has focused on next week's presidential election. The Trump campaign quickly distanced itself, saying, “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.” Hinchcliffe tried to backtrack almost immediately, saying he was vacationing in Puerto Rico and loved the island .

Puerto Ricans have heard excuses and apologies like this before. The fact is that Hinchcliffe was at that Trump rally, and anyone who tries to portray it differently just doesn't understand it and never will.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday made sure to link Hinchcliffe to the former president, saying, “This is nothing new.” [Trump]By the way. What he did last night wasn't a discovery. It's just more of the same and maybe more lively than usual.” Harris and her team hope the comment works to their advantage. The campaign's plan for Puerto Rico was released on the same day as Hinchcliffe's failed comedy show.

The disaster of Hurricane Maria and the Trump administration's botched response have led Puerto Ricans to become more vocal about their role in the American political system. About 500,000 Puerto Ricans live in the embattled state of Pennsylvania. During Trump's rally, music superstar Bad Bunny supported Harris – joining other Puerto Rican celebrities like Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin – and shared her newly announced proposals for the island on his social media accounts.

The Harris campaign does what campaigns do. But if you look at Hinchcliffe's words only through a political lens, he misses the bigger picture. Puerto Rico, a spoil of an American war victory in 1898, still has a complicated colonial relationship with the United States. In the 19th century, images that mocked backward Puerto Ricans as savages were the norm in the United States. Little has changed since then: Other Americans have always viewed Puerto Ricans as dirty, backward, ignorant and second-class citizens.

It's as if Puerto Ricans were never freed from the “West Side Story” stereotypes of the late 1950s, when the Broadway hit became the defining image of Puerto Ricans for most Americans. Puerto Rican characters singing “Puerto Rico, you dirty island…” has always been wrong. Even when the musical went through some more modern revisions to clean it up a bit, the damage was already done. The prejudiced portrayal has never left the American cultural lexicon. As far as I can remember, “jokes” about us Puerto Ricans have always failed. Americans never seem to learn.

In 1998, during the final season of “Seinfeld,” NBC was forced to apologize for an episode in which the character Cosmo Kramer burned a Puerto Rican flag because the city's Puerto Rican Day parade caused too much traffic. (NBC and MSNBC are both owned by NBC Universal.) The backlash from Puerto Ricans was swift. In fact, this episode was removed from the syndicated show's TV schedule, although unfortunately it is available to stream on Netflix today.

In 2012, Puerto Rican activists expressed anger at the ABC sitcom “Work It” when Puerto Rican actor Amuary Nolasco's character said, “I'm Puerto Rican. I'd be great at selling drugs.” Eventually the show was canceled.

Puerto Ricans are still working to denounce those who continue to denigrate us. And we are exhausted. Nothing has really changed when it comes to respecting Puerto Ricans for who they are and what they have done to contribute to American democracy, even if that same democracy has maintained a relationship that may give us American citizenship, but still keeps us as a colony.

This is not about how many Puerto Ricans have died in wars for American causes or that some of the country's biggest celebrities are Puerto Ricans.

There is something deeper here that we as Americans don't want to deal with.

More than 125 years after their island was conquered by the American Empire, Puerto Ricans are still a punchline. The Trump campaign would love to see this all go away, while the Harris campaign would use it to lure out more Boricua voters. But this is much bigger than Republican or Democratic support and who will win Puerto Rican voters in 2024. Both parties have historically supported a colonial system that has done little to improve Puerto Rico's situation. For too long, other Americans have thought Puerto Ricans were a joke. Now we demand respect.