<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" If America doesn&amp;#039;t add a new star before I die, I&amp;#039;ll be the first Barnett -- in a long line of Barnetts -- to be born and die under the same flag. That just ain&amp;#039;t right. Men and nations change. Travel back with me and track the growth of these United States across seven generations of my family: \u2022 Joseph Barnett (born 1754) saw thirteen colonies form a new nation, and then grow to twenty-six states total before he died in 1838. \u2022  His son Andrew (born 1797) witnessed eighteen states join the Union, only to see it rip apart just as he passed in 1862. \u2022  Then came Jared (1831-1911), who, across his tumultuous eight decades, watched nine new states join, eleven of them leave in a huff (only to be forcibly readmitted), and then another thirteen added! \u2022  Jared&amp;#039;s boy Harry (1864-1948) had his national flag go from thirty-five stars to forty-eight. \u2022  My grandfather, J.E. (1896-1983), got five new stars. \u2022 And his only son, my dad, John (1922-2004), was reduced to just two (Alaska and Hawaii). And what about me (1962 and counting)? I&amp;#039;m looking at bubkes with all this anti-immigrant fervor and Red State-versus-Blue State hostility, even as China is adding back lost colonies and the European Union has grown dramatically since the cold war&amp;#039;s end.  Even Osama bin Laden wants to gin up an Islam-wide caliphateracy of some sort. So why is America so closed for business just as globalization&amp;#039;s sweeping advance seems to be pushing the rest of the world into mergers and acquisitions? Americans forget that these United States (incidentally, the only country in the world without a place name) constitute the planet&amp;#039;s oldest and most successful multinational political and economic union. No union&amp;#039;s ever consistently added stars over its lifetime like the U.S., which, by the way, still accounts for roughly one quarter of the global GDP (with the EU right on our tail and China gaining fast!). Why did the United States stop growing?  Blame it on our cold-war containment strategy, which turned us into such a status-quo-protecting power, which is a true betrayal of our historical roots.  So where do we go from here? First off, as we proved with Alaska and Hawaii, being noncontiguous to the Lower Forty-eight is no showstopper. So don&amp;#039;t assume our only options are Mexico (which provided us with eight states in the past) and Canada (although if Quebec really makes a break for it, I say invite Alberta down for a couple of beers).  Second, much like the Free-Slave-state matching scheme during the run-up to the Civil War, we&amp;#039;d have to add states in Red-Blue pairs just to keep Newt and Hillary and the rest of those boomer politicos from going to the mattresses. Politicians can talk themselves into these types of bargains so long as neither party is seen as getting a permanent leg up on the other. An excellent example of this is the recent negotiation to add a GOP-heavy congressional district in Utah that would balance a new voting seat in the House for the District of Columbia. Third, our internal demographics will be a key driver. At the beginning of World War II, America was almost 90 percent white and less than 2 percent Hispanic. Now we are roughly 70 percent white and 15 percent Hispanic. By 2050, roughly one out of every four American voters will share a Hispanic heritage. In electoral-powerhouse states like Texas and Florida, the ratio will reach far higher. By 2040, for example, Hispanics will constitute an absolute majority in California! Historically, the U.S. added states by flooding the territory in question with its nationals and then having them petition back for statehood. But with the rising Hispanicization of America, we&amp;#039;re looking at the opposite dynamic unfolding: Hispanic Americans agitating for inclusion of their familial homelands in the United States. I can&amp;#039;t wait to DVR Lou Dobbs&amp;#039;s big old pumpkin head exploding in a fireball of rage.  Cuba represents the first best scenario, and here&amp;#039;s how it will happen: \u2022 Fidel Castro croaks and brother Raul ends up running things for a bit, experimenting with markets and letting in a trickle of foreign investment from &amp;quot;trusted&amp;quot; sources. \u2022 Raul is soon replaced by some &amp;quot;national unity&amp;quot; committee that reflects the growing splits within the next generation of leaders over how far market reforms should proceed. Meanwhile, the money seeping in from Miami&amp;#039;s Cubans grows to a flood and travel restrictions are radically reduced in response to popular demand. \u2022 Within five years, Cuba holds its first roughly free presidential election, and one or more candidates, with substantial outside financial backing, stumps openly for American statehood. \u2022 Once that match gets lit, watch Florida hold every subsequent American presidential candidate hostage to the Cuba-statehood plank.   Once we move into that political territory, the pairing most likely to unfold is Blue State D.C. joining the Union alongside Red State Cuba, and I&amp;#039;ve got my first two new stars on the flag.  Then just watch a host of other possibilities come into view: \u2022 Look first for the revived candidacy of Puerto Rico (code Red), whose population could command a half dozen seats in the House, possibly balanced by a Hawaii-like confederation of our Pacific-island holdings (code Blue). We structured the &amp;quot;free associated state&amp;quot; of Puerto Rico all wrong back in 1952, because that political compromise (coming on the heels of an assassination attempt on Harry Truman by PR radicals) wasn&amp;#039;t designed as a permanent status but as a clear stepping-stone to real statehood. For now, PR drains $20 billion out of the Treasury each year in federal grants while paying back nothing in taxes and is subject to all our laws while having no representation in Congress and no vote for president. As it now stands, Congress can unilaterally chuck PR any time it damn well pleases, and that&amp;#039;s just plain wrong. I mean, how would you like to be a statutory citizen of the U.S., maybe even serving in the military, only to see your &amp;quot;commonwealth&amp;quot; given the boot in some racist fit of pique?  \u2022 Mexico&amp;#039;s already carved up into states (convenient), and the northernmost could conceivably join up in some scheme balanced by GOP-heavy Texas&amp;#039;s subdivision. (The 1845 congressional joint resolution admitting Texas allows for its division into as many as five separate states.) Frankly, the United Mexican States (yes, that&amp;#039;s its actual name) has always been a fractious lot, with an almost unending history of secessionist movements (the Zapatistas being just the latest). While the northern states are clearly integrating economically with the U.S., the southern ones continue to fall behind, leading to a serious north-south divide. Doesn&amp;#039;t it make sense to move beyond NAFTA and offer an EU-like package, working our way -- geographically speaking -- down the list? Or is that ridiculous fence the best we can come up with? This is America. We don&amp;#039;t build fences. Mr. (or Madame) Forty-fourth President, tear down that wall! \u2022 Farther south, I&amp;#039;d keep an eye on dollarized economies like El Salvador and Panama. First, there&amp;#039;s the strong economic bond created by remittances. For example, roughly one out of every four Salvadorans lives and works in the U.S., and it&amp;#039;s really the earnings they send back that keep the place running. Second, when you look at the rising tide of American retirees settling in Central America, especially in lovely places like Costa Rica, you&amp;#039;ve got the beginnings of a rich, crabby, vote-conscious lobby. \u2022 As for Canada, I&amp;#039;m not kidding. The western provinces (Blueish British Columbia and reddish Alberta) have never liked the francophone easterners and would make a wonderful matched set if Quebec ever got its wish and triggered Canada&amp;#039;s breakup. Reposition Nova Scotia as NAFTA&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;Hong Kong&amp;quot; (it really should have been America&amp;#039;s fourteenth colony, anyway) and then we&amp;#039;d really start competing with rising Asia (another continent once messed over by those nasty European colonial powers). \u2022 There are more possibilities. But let&amp;#039;s not forget the 562 &amp;quot;tribal nations&amp;quot; currently located within these United States. Collectively, they own roughly fifty-seven million square acres of territory, and with enough untaxed casino revenue...well, let&amp;#039;s not roll those dice just yet.  We&amp;#039;ve seen history resume its march all over the world since the cold war ended, and there&amp;#039;s no reason why it can&amp;#039;t happen here, too. As author Juan Enriquez likes to point out, countries are very delicate things that come together and break apart much like marriages.  There&amp;#039;s been no significant border change on the American continent since the start of the twentieth century. With countries dying and rising all over the planet in droves since 1990, how long do you think that can last?  This story is part of our second annual register of emerging ideas, trends, discoveries, products, people, and obscene gestures you should know about before everyone else does. &amp;amp;lt;&amp;amp;lt; Read Previous * [Back to Esquire 100] * Read Next &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a3425/fivestates1007/>