We’re coming up on the 110th anniversary of the U.S. takeover of Puerto Rico, and, unfortunately, its status as one of the world’s oldest colonies seems safe.

The United States invaded the island on July 25, 1898, and claimed it as booty after the Spanish-American War. Long since obsolete as a strategic outpost in the Cold War, the Caribbean island is America’s best-kept secret: an unfree state within the land of the free.

The island, which had been a Spanish colony for 400 years, was never seriously considered for statehood. Ugly biases got in the way. For instance, in the early 20th century, Sen. Benjamin Tillman from South Carolina questioned whether the United States should take on “hundreds of thousands of mongrels of Spanish blood imbued with Spanish thought and action.”

Instead, Puerto Rico is an “unincorporated territory,” which means that the island is subject to the authority of the U.S. Congress, which can overturn any action by the island’s legislature. Puerto Ricans were conferred U.S. citizenship as a result of the Jones Act in 1917, just in time for them to be conscripted as soldiers in World War I. Islanders continue to serve with distinction in the armed services despite not having the right to vote for president.

Some progress has been made in Puerto Rico’s ability to determine its own destiny. An elected, native-born governor replaced appointed U.S. military governors in 1952, and a constitution established that year gave it a euphemistic status called “commonwealth” or “free associated state.”

Puerto Rico’s commonwealth status was a dry run for the free trade practices of the last 15 years, where profit — and the potential for local investment — is extracted from a weaker economy by rampaging multinational corporations.

Today, Puerto Rico is suffering from a failing economy with high unemployment rates, a fall-off in tourism due to the gas crisis, overdependence on government entitlements like food stamps and a failing public education system.

Its governor, Anibal Acevedo Vila, has been indicted for corruption by prosecutors from the U.S. Justice Department, something considered an intrusive act by many Puerto Ricans.

Puerto Rican police officers have also long complained about the FBI's disregard for their authority. And the FBI, whose attempt to arrest independence leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios in his home in 2005 resulted in his death under questionable circumstances, continues to harass and indict independence movement members both on the island and in New York.

Puerto Rico has much to be proud of. It has produced many world-class entertainers, athletes, poets and thinkers. And the migration of many of its citizens to the United States has positively influenced the evolution of American culture.

But it’s time for the question of self-determination to be settled once and for all on this paradisiacal island. After 110 years, the United States should live up to its stated ideals of freedom, democracy and self-determination.

Ed Morales is a contributor to the New York Times and Newsday and is the author of “Living in Spanglish” (St. Martin’s Press, 2002). He can be reached at pmproj [at] progressive [dot] org.