His ancient enmities are now fresher than ever because of the island’s catastrophic $72 billion debt, which has placed Puerto Rico into what amounts to federal receivership. A seven-member panel appointed by Congress and President Obama will soon hold sway over the island and its finances, which collapsed after years of long-term borrowing to cover rising short-term costs. To longtime nationalists like Mr. Cancel Miranda, it is yet more proof that colonialism is alive and well here.

This helps Mr. Cancel Miranda explain something odd that happened this summer. In June, the governor of Puerto Rico, Alejandro J. García Padilla, traveled to New York City and told a special committee of the United Nations that despite all appearances, Puerto Rico was still a colony of the United States. He sought the United Nations’ help in achieving self-determination for the island, which is a territory of the United States.

“Puerto Rico is hungry and thirsty for justice,” Mr. García Padilla said.

The special committee has called on Washington to “allow the Puerto Rican people fully to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and independence.”

To understand why Mr. García Padilla’s remarks were so unusual, it helps to know that his Popular Democratic Party claims to have already freed Puerto Rico from the colonial yoke. The island’s independence is a signature issue: The party takes credit for negotiating a unique status for Puerto Rico — that of an “associated free state” — which is said to provide the best of both worlds, statehood and independence, without forcing Puerto Rico to choose.