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Vieques, the Navy, and Puerto Rican Politics (New Directions in Puerto Rican Studies)

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The little island of Vieques, a few miles off the eastern tip of Puerto Rico, was made famous in the American media after an errant Navy bomb killed a civilian guard, David Sanes Rodriguez, in 1999. But there was a far, far longer history of resistance to the American military occupation that began in the early 1940s and finally succeeded, in May 2003, in evicting the Navy. For any visitor who wants something more than a vacation in a seeming paradise, Barreto's book--thoroughly researched and briskly and accessibly written--is an excellent companion. Barreto himself has a personal connection with Puerto Rican resistance to colonization as the grandson of a man who maintained a "minishrine" in the town of Lares in western Puerto Rico, site of 1868 rebellion against Spain that remains a landmark in the history of Puerto Rican anti-colonialism. While this connection animates his interest in Vieques, Barreto writes as a historically informed political scientist, not as a propagandist. His interest in the way political myths arise and then shape events drives his account. For this reader--just returned from a first trip to Vieques that included exposure to the pro-Navy myth--this element of the book was particularly valuable. The book enabled me to understand much better the signs reading FUERA LA MARINA (NAVY OUT) that are present throughout the island. Barreto's treatment of the controversy is fair, but the evidence of deceit on the part of the Navy is overwhelming. The book is a case study in United States arrogance masked as benevolence.