America's Colony: The Political and Cultural Conflict between the United States and Puerto Rico (Critical America)

257 Pages·2004·0.58 MB·English

by  Pedro Malavet

America’s Colony
c r i t i c a l a m e r i c a
General Editors: Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic
White by Law: To Be an American: Cultural Pluralism
The Legal Construction of Race and the Rhetoric of Assimilation
Ian F. Haney López Bill Ong Hing
Cultivating Intelligence: Negrophobia and Reasonable Racism:
Power, Law, and the Politics of Teaching The Hidden Costs of Being
Louise Harmon and Deborah W. Post Black in America
Jody David Armour
Privilege Revealed:
How Invisible Preference Black and Brown in America:
Undermines America The Case for Cooperation
Stephanie M. Wildmand with Margalynne Bill Piatt
Armstrong, Adrienne D. Davis, and Trina
Black Rage Confronts the Law
Grillo
Paul Harris
Does the Law Morally Bind the Poor?
Selling Words:
or What Good’s the Constitution When
Free Speech in a Commercial Culture
You Can’t Afford a Loaf of Bread?
R. George Wright
R. George Wright
Hybrid: Bisexuals, Multiracials, and The Color of Crime: Racial Hoaxes,
Other Misfits under American Law White Fear, Black Protectionism,
Police Harassment, and
Ruth Colker
Other Macroaggressions
Critical Race Feminism: A Reader
Katheryn K. Russell
Edited by Adrien Katherine Wing
The Smart Culture:
Immigrants Out! Society, Intelligence, and Law
The New Nativism and the
Robert L. Hayman, Jr.
Anti-Immigrant Impulse
in the United States Was Blind, But Now I See:
Edited by Juan F. Perea White Race Consciousness and the Law
Barbara J. Flagg
Taxing America
Edited by Karen B. Brown and Mary The Gender Line:
Louise Fellows Men, Women, and the Law
Nancy Levit
Notes of a Racial Caste Baby:
Color Blindness and the Heretics in the Temple:
End of Affirmative Action Americans Who Reject
Bryan K. Fair the Nation’s Legal Faith
David Ray Papke
Please Don’t Wish Me a Merry
Christmas: A Critical History of the The Empire Strikes Back: Outsiders and
Separation of Church and State the Struggle over Legal Education
Stephen M. Feldman Arthur Austin
Interracial Justice: Conflict and Why Lawsuits Are Good for America:
Reconciliation in Disciplined Democracy, Big Business,
Post–Civil Rights America and the Common Law
Eric K. Yamamoto Carl T. Bogus
Black Men on Race, Gender, and How the Left Can Win Arguments and
Sexuality: A Critical Reader Influence People: A Tactical Manual for
Edited by Devon Carbado Pragmatic Progressives
John K. Wilson
When Sorry Isn’t Enough:
The Controversy over Apologies and Aftermath:
Reparations for Human Injustice The Clinton Impeachment and the Presi-
Edited by Roy L. Brooks dency in the Age of Political Spectacle
Edited by Leonard V. Kaplan
Disoriented: Asian Americans, Law,
and Beverly I. Moran
and the Nation State
Robert S. Chang Getting over Equality: A Critical Diag-
nosis of Religious Freedom in America
Rape and the Culture of the Courtroom
Steven D. Smith
Andrew E. Taslitz
Critical Race Narratives: A Study of
The Passions of Law
Race, Rhetoric, and Injury
Edited by Susan A. Bandes
Carl Gutiérrez-Jones
Global Critical Race Feminism:
An International Reader Social Scientists for Social Justice:
Making the Case against Segregation
Edited by Adrien Katherine Wing
John P. Jackson, Jr.
Law and Religion: Critical Essays
Victims in the War on Crime:
Edited by Stephen M. Feldman
The Use and Abuse of Victims’ Rights
Changing Race: Latinos, the Census, Markus Dirk Dubber
and the History of Ethnicity
Original Sin:
Clara E. Rodríguez
Clarence Thomas and the Failure
From the Ground Up: Environmental of the Constitutional Conservatives
Racism and the Rise of the Samuel A. Marcosson
Environmental Justice Movement
Policing Hatred: Law Enforcement,
Luke Cole and Sheila Foster
Civil Rights, and Hate Crime
Nothing but the Truth: Why Trial Jeannine Bell
Lawyers Don’t, Can’t, and Shouldn’t
Destructive Messages:
Have to Tell the Whole Truth
How Hate Speech Paves the Way for
Steven Lubet
Harmful Social Movements
Critical Race Theory: An Introduction Alexander Tsesis
Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic
Moral Imperialism:
Playing It Safe: How the Supreme Court A Critical Anthology
Sidesteps Hard Cases Edited by Berta Esperanza
Lisa A. Kloppenberg Hernández-Truyol
In the Silicon Valley of Dreams: Saving Our Children
Environmental Injustice, from the First Amendment
Immigrant Workers, and the Kevin W. Saunders
High-Tech Global Economy
David N. Pellow and Elusive Citizenship:
Lisa Sun-Hee Park Immigration, Asian Americans,
and the Paradox of Civil Rights
Mixed Race America and the Law:
John S. W. Park
A Reader
Kevin R. Johnson Truth, Autonomy, and Speech:
Feminist Theory and the
Critical Race Feminism:
First Amendment
A Reader, Second Edition
Edited by Adrien Katherine Wing Susan H. Williams
Murder and the Reasonable Man: Legal Education and the Reproduction
Passion and Fear in the of Hierarchy: A Polemic against the
Criminal Courtroom System, A Critical Edition
Cynthia K. Lee Duncan Kennedy,
with commentaries by Paul Carrington,
Success without Victory:
Peter Gabel, Angela Harris and
Lost Legal Battles and the
Donna Maeda, and Janet Halley
Long Road to Justice in America
Jules Lobel
America’s Colony:The Political
Greasers and Gringos: Latinos, Law, and Cultural Conflict between the
and the American Imagination United States and Puerto Rico
Steven W. Bender Pedro A. Malavet
America’s
Colony
The Political and Cultural Conflict
between the United States
and Puerto Rico
Pedro A. Malavet
a
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
new york university press
New York and London
www.nyupress.org
© 2004 by New York University
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Malavet, Pedro A.
America's colony : the political and cultural conflict between the
United States and Puerto Rico / Pedro A. Malavet.
p. cm. — (Critical America)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–8147–5680–8 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Puerto Rico—Politics and government—20th century.
2. Self-determination, National—Puerto Rico.
3. Identity (Psychology)—Puerto Rico. 4. Ethnicity—Puerto Rico.
5. Puerto Rico—Relations—United States. 6. United States—
Relations—Puerto Rico. I. Title. II. Series.
F1975.M23 2004
325.7295—dc22 2004006087
New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper,
and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my parents,
María Angélica Cruz de Menchaca and
Pedro Malavet Vega

Contents
Gracias (Thanks) xi
Introduction: Why I Am Here 1
1 Race, Culture, Colonialism, Citizenships,
and Latina/o Critical Race Theory 15
2 The Legal Relationship between Puerto Rico
and the Estados Unidos de Norteamérica
(United States of America) 28
3 Puerto Rican Political Culture 49
4 Puerto Rican Cultural Nationhood 100
5 Theorizing a New Reality of Citizenship and Nation 117
6 A Framework for Legal Reform 132
7 Conclusion 147
Notes 163
Index 223
About the Author 242
ix