I Don't Celebrate the Fourth of July. I Just Take the Day Off.

A paid day off from a country that never paid attention.

Here's the truth: I don't celebrate the Fourth of July. I just take the day off.

No stars. No stripes. No BBQ. No ironic flag tank top. Just a beach day if I'm lucky (maybe a theme park, maybe some quiet). It's not a holiday for me. It's a broadcast.

Every year, July 4 rolls around and the loudest country on Earth starts shouting about freedom. About democracy. About independence.

And every year, I sit there (a U.S. citizen from Puerto Rico) watching a country celebrate values it systematically denies us.

"You're American too." No. I'm not.

I'm from "that island". It shaped me. Claimed me. That's where my family's from, where my roots run deep, and where everything that matters started.

It's also where people don't vote for president. Where Congress makes the rules, but we get no say. Where U.S. citizenship was handed out in 1917... not out of generosity, but so they could send us to war.

Today, there's an unelected fiscal board calling the shots from Washington, and we still call that a "Commonwealth." Cute.

We're American enough to send overseas. American enough to pay federal taxes on federal employment. But not American enough to choose our president.

And yeah... people love to remind us, "Well, you can move to the States."

Cool. We get to leave our own country just to access rights we never consented to give up.

That's not freedom. That's the deal we got.

The First Time I Knew

I didn't grow up angry about it. I grew up indifferent. Two languages. Two flags. One pledge I never really believed in.

But sometime in my teens, it clicked.

I realized who gets celebrated. Who gets listened to. Who gets invited to write the story... and who's just supposed to turn the page.

That's when July 4 stopped being a fun fireworks day and started feeling like a rerun of someone else's revolution.

I Have Family Stories Too

My great-aunt was forcibly sterilized. One of thousands. My grandfather (a US-educated engineer) was denied a military promotion during the Korean War because he was Puerto Rican.

But sure. "Land of opportunity."

We've fought in every war. We've buried our dead under American flags. And we still get treated like an afterthought... until hurricane season or when they need tax breaks for their corporations.

Statehood Isn't the Answer. It's the Distraction.

Some folks still treat statehood like a fix-all.

But that offer was always bait with no hook. Prove loyalty? We did. Grow the economy? We tried. Raise the flag? We've done that too.

Puerto Rico even voted for statehood several times in recent years. Well, I didn’t, I knew it was a farce.

And Congress? Nothing.

No vote. No bill. No serious effort. Just a shrug and a smokescreen. A reminder that colonial power doesn't care what you want... just what it can extract.

The U.S. could have acted. Instead, they chose comfort over change. They're quite happy being colonizers.

They love to say Puerto Rico is part of the U.S.... until it's time to act like it.

The Flag Means Different Things

When Americans celebrate July 4, they deworks, parades, and freedom. When we see that flag, we see July 25, 1898 (the day after the U.S. invaded our island).

We see their culture replacing ours… by design. We see our language pushed out of schools. We see our own flag made illegal under the Gag Law. We see a "commonwealth" that's only common if you ignore who holds the power.

We see history rewritten while they hand out hot dogs and say it's all the same now.

We weren't liberated in 1898. We were invaded. We were colonized.

I Don't Hate America. But I Know What It Is.

This isn't about bitterness. It's about clarity.

The U.S. loves freedom the way a corporation loves a logo. The product doesn't have to match the packaging... it just has to sell.

July 4 isn't my story. It's someone else's victory lap over a revolution I wasn't invited to, celebrating independence I never received.

I'm not fooled. And I'm not here to pretend the Fourth of July belongs to me when it's always been about everyone else.

So Yeah, I'll Take the Day Off.

I'm not an idiot. I'll take the PTO. I'll enjoy a day without meetings. But I won't pretend it means anything more than that.

Because I wasn't granted independence. My people never got the choice.

So no, I don't celebrate the Fourth of July.

I just take the day off.