Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In a season when the 2004 election placed emphasis on counting every vote and Americans valued our political system by contrast to the rampant election fraud in Ukraine, law professor Pedro Malavet has exposed one of the gaping cracks in our national and international political leadership--the U.S. occupation of Puerto Rico that has denied political participation to its residents for over a century without resolution. Observing correctly that few U.S. citizens understand or appreciate the second-class citizenship status of the people of Puerto Rico, Malavet charts a concise but potent history of occupation of Puerto Rico by Spain and then the United States, and proposes a strategy to enable Puerto Ricans to determine their desired status. Most heartening in his analysis is that despite their political second-class citizenship coupled with efforts to Americanize them, Malavet demonstrates that the people of Puerto Rico have managed to forge an independent cultural identity. Their sparkling cultural nationhood heightens the need to change the legal status of "America's colony." Called by one commentator a forgotten colony, Malavet addresses his birthplace with cultural reverence while exposing this underside of American democracy and demanding recognition of the flaws in the U.S.-Puerto Rico colonial relationship.