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Puerto Rico, one of the last and most populated colonial territories in the world, occupies a relatively unique position. Its lengthy interaction with the United States has resulted in the long-term acquisition of expanded legal rights and relative political stability. At the same time, that interaction has simultaneously seen political intolerance and the denial of basic rights, particularly toward those who have challenged colonialism. In Puerto Rico under Colonial Rule, academics and intellectuals from the fields of political science, history, sociology, and law examine three themes: evidence of state-sponsored political persecution in the twentieth century, contemporary issues, and the case of Vieques.
Puerto Rico has been an "unincorporated territory" of the United States for over a century. For much of that time, the archipelago has been mostly invisible to US residents and neglected by the government. However, a series of crises in the first two decades of the twenty-first century, from outsized debt to climate fueled disasters, have led to massive protests and brought Puerto Rico greater visibility. Monica A. Jimenez argues that to fully understand how and why Puerto Rico finds itself in this current moment of precarity, we must look to a larger history of US settler colonialism and racial exclusion in law. The federal policies and jurisprudence that created Puerto Rico exist within a larger pantheon of exclusionary, race-based laws and policies that have carved out "states of exception" for racial undesirables: Native Americans, African Americans, and the inhabitants of the insular territories. This legal regime has allowed the federal government plenary or complete power over these groups. Jimenez brings these histories together to demonstrate that despite Puerto Rico's unique position as a twenty-first-century colony, its path to that place was not exceptional.
Radical Solidarity tells the riveting story of Ruth Reynolds (1916–89), a white pacifist from South Dakota who became a stalwart ally of nationalist revolutionaries during Puerto Rico's long struggle for independence. Reynolds dedicated her life to ending US control of the archipelago. She testified before Congress and the UN, organized fellow North Americans, investigated the brutal tactics used by the colonial state to quash independence sentiment, and was incarcerated as a political prisoner. Lisa G. Materson introduces the concept of "radical solidarity" to describe Reynolds's powerful model for globally engaged activism. Guided by her vision of allyship, Reynolds developed deep bonds ...
Challenges dominant interpretations of colonialism's impact on the economy and social structuring of a US-owned Caribbean colony.
In this book, the islands' connections with American and European metropolitan centers are considered lifelines, which must be strengthened. The constitutional arrangement is defined as extended statehood, a form of government that is meant to supplement the island government. Circumstances have changed and require a format of analysis that goes beyond the old landscape of 'colonies' and 'independent states.' The objective of this book is to promote a new look at extended statehood in the Caribbean while raising a number of questions relating to the operation of the different extended statehood systems across the region.
While 1998 marked the 100th anniversary of the United States' invasion and takeover of Puerto Rico, it wasn't until 1999 that the island's political movements reappeared on the radar screen of the American people. That year, two major developments occurred that transformed the relationship between Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.: the limited clemency granted by then-President Clinton to eleven Puerto Rican Nationalists, and the death of Puerto Rican civilian security guard David Sanes, killed by missile fragments from U.S. naval bombing tests on the island municipality of Vieques. How does Vieques fit into the political future of Puerto Rico? While anti-Navy protesters are careful not to mi...
Drawing from in-depth interviews with a group of Puerto Ricans who requested a certificate of Puerto Rican citizenship, legal and historical documents, and official reports not publicly accessible, Jacqueline Font-Guzmán shares how some Puerto Ricans construct and experience their citizenship and national identity at the margins of the US nation. Winner of the 2015 Juridical Book of the Year in the category of ‘Essay Promoting Critical Thinking and Analysis of Juridical and Social Issues.’
A comprehensive history and comparative analysis of the most important Caribbean armed revolutionary movements during the Cold War era.
With the end of the global Cold War, the struggle for human rights has emerged as one of the most controversial forces of change in Latin America. Many observers seek the foundations of that movement in notions of rights and models of democratic institutions that originated in the global North. Challenging that view, this volume argues that Latin American community organizers, intellectuals, novelists, priests, students, artists, urban pobladores, refugees, migrants, and common people have contributed significantly to new visions of political community and participatory democracy. These local actors built an alternative transnational solidarity from below with significant participation of the socially excluded and activists in the global South. Edited by Jessica Stites Mor, this book offers fine-grained case studies that show how Latin America’s re-emerging Left transformed the struggles against dictatorship and repression of the Cold War into the language of anti-colonialism, socioeconomic rights, and identity.
We live in a world awash in manmade chemicals, from the pesticides on our front lawns to the diesel exhaust in the air we breathe. Although experts are beginning to understand the potential dangers of these substances, there are still more than 80,000 synthetic compounds that have not been sufficiently tested to interpret their effects on human health. Yale University professor John Wargo has spent much of his career researching the impact of chemical exposures on women and children. In this book, he explains the origins of society’s profound misunderstanding of everyday chemical hazards and offers a practical path toward developing greater “green intelligence.” Despite the rising tren...