Military Power and Popular Protest: The U.S. Navy in Vieques, Puerto Rico

240 Pages·2002·0.81 MB·English

by  Katherine T. McCaffrey

Preface i
Military Power and Popular Protest
ii Preface
Preface iii
Military Power and
Popular Protest
The U.S. Navy in
Vieques, Puerto Rico
Katherine T. McCaffrey
Rutgers University Press
New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London
iv Preface
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McCaffrey, Katherine T., 1966–
Military power and popular protest : the U.S. Navy in Vieques, Puerto Rico
/ Katherine T. McCaffrey.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8135-3090-3 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-8135-3091-1
(pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Vieques Island (P.R.)—History—20th century. 2. Protest movements—
Puerto Rico—Vieques Island—History—20th century. 3. United States.
Navy—Target practice—History—20th century. 4. Civil-military relations—
Puerto Rico—Vieques Island—History—20th century. 5. Government,
Resistance to—Puerto Rico—Vieques Island—History—20th century. I. Title.
F1981.V5 M33 2002
972.95'9—dc21
2001048838
British Cataloging-in-Publication data for this book is available from the British
Library.
Copyright © 2002 by Katherine T. McCaffrey
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University
Press, 100 Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway, NJ 08854–8099. The only exception
to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Preface v
For Howard and our children, Benjamin and Julia
vi Preface
Preface vii
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Acronyms and Spanish Terms xvii
Introduction 1
One A Strategic Colony on the Margins of the Empire 17
Two Cultural Identity in Vieques 43
Three The Fishermen’s War 67
Four We Are a Species in Danger of Extinction:
The Aftermath of the Fishermen’s Crusade 98
Five Organizing for Change 124
Six From Pescadores to Rescatores: The Resurgence and
Transformation of Struggle 147
Seven The Battle of Vieques 173
Notes 185
References 197
Index 207
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vviiiiii PCroenftaecnets
Preface ix
Preface
When I first traveled to the Puerto Rican island of Vieques in the summer of
1991, the U.S. Navy, at war with squatters, had secured the contested bound-
aries of its western perimeter with tall cyclone fences, rimmed with coils of
razor wire. Behind navy fences stood a majestic old Ceiba tree. The Ceiba re-
calls the forest that once covered Vieques before sugar cane fields and navy
bulldozers cut across the terrain. Its massive, buttressed root system has an-
chored this huge tree against the fury of countless tropical storms. The Ceiba
came to symbolize for me the beauty and resilience of the people who struggle
to live on this island.
Ten years later the fences that delimited the Ceiba were torn down. In re-
sponse to a widespread popular movement, the navy relinquished one-third of
its landholdings in Vieques. Under an agreement reached by U.S. president
Bill Clinton and Puerto Rican governor Pedro Rosselló, eight thousand acres
of land under military jurisdiction returned to civilian authorities in June 2001.
The reversion of land suggested how dramatically the course of Vieques’s his-
tory had changed in one decade.
I first came to Vieques with the support of an Alexander C. Naclerio Award
from the City University of New York Graduate School for research in hous-
ing and urban studies and a graduate research fellowship from Intercambio,
the City University of New York–University of Puerto Rico exchange program.
Because I was interested in squatting as a social movement in Puerto Rico, a
number of colleagues had suggested I look at Vieques. Just two years earlier,
in 1989, two hundred families on the island had seized eight hundred acres of
land under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Navy and built an organized settlement
that was ultimately wiped out later that year by Hurricane Hugo. I was intrigued
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