Puerto Rico's history does not begin with the United States. It begins with the Taíno, who called this island Boriken and built its first civilization. It continues through five centuries of transformation: Spanish colonization, the forced passage of enslaved Africans whose culture became inseparable from the island's own, the Spanish-American War of 1898, and the Jones-Shafroth Act of 1917, which extended United States citizenship to every Puerto Rican and bound this island's fate to the republic’s.

What followed that bond is a record that speaks for itself:

More than 65,000 Puerto Ricans served in World War II. Approximately 61,000 served in Korea, most of them volunteers. Today, Puerto Ricans enlist in the United States military at nearly twice the rate of the general American population. More than 90,000 veterans call this island home. Over 1,900 have given their lives in defense of a nation in whose elections they could not vote.

The 65th Infantry Regiment, the Borinqueneers, fought in Korea with a distinction that the United States Army did not formally recognize for decades. In 2016, Congress awarded them the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor the nation can bestow. They had waited more than sixty years. They were right to hold out for it.

Beyond the battlefield, Puerto Rico's contribution to American life is woven into the fabric of the nation: in medicine, law, literature, music, art, and sport. In the halls of the Supreme Court and the operating rooms of its hospitals. In the stadiums, the concert halls, the laboratories, and the classrooms. Puerto Ricans did not contribute to America from the margins. They built it from the inside.