Puerto Rico in the American Century

by Ayala, Cesar J.; Bernabe, Rafael

• ISBN13: 9780807859544
• ISBN10: 0807859540
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-02-01
• Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr

Summary

Offering a comprehensive overview of Puerto Rico's history and evolution since the installation of U.S. rule, Cesar Ayala and Rafael Bernabe connect the island's economic, political, cultural, and social past.Puerto Rico in the American Centuryexplores Puerto Ricans in the diaspora as well as the island residents, who experience an unusual and daily conundrum: they consider themselves a distinct people but are part of the American political system; they have U.S. citizenship but are not represented in the U.S. Congress; and they live on land that is neither independent nor part of the United States.Highlighting both well-known and forgotten figures from Puerto Rican history, Ayala and Bernabe discuss a wide range of topics, including literary and cultural debates and social and labor struggles that previous histories have neglected. Although the island's political economy remains dependent on the United States, the authors also discuss Puerto Rico's situation in light of world economies. Ayala and Bernabe argue that the inability of Puerto Rico to shake its colonial legacy reveals the limits of free-market capitalism, a break from which would require a renewal of the long tradition of labor and social activism in Puerto Rico in connection with similar currents in the United States.

Author Biography

Cesar J. Ayala is associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of American Sugar Kingdom: The Plantation Economy of the Spanish Caribbean, 1898-1934. Rafael Bernabe is professor and director of the Federico de Orus Hispanic Studies Center at the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras. He has published three books in Puerto Rico.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgment	p. xiii
Abbreviations	p. xv
Introduction	p. I
1898-Background and Immediate Consequence	p. 14
Reshaping Puerto Rico's Economy, 1898-1934	p. 33
Political and Social Struggles in a New Colonial Context, 1900-1930	p. 52
Americanization and Its Discontents, 1898-1929	p. 74
Economic Depression and Political Crisis: The Turbulent Thirties	p. 95
Cultural Debates in an Epoch of Crisis: National Interpretations in the Thirties	p. 117
Turning Point in the Forties: Rise of the Partido Popular Democrático	p. 136
Birth of the Estado Libre Asociado	p. 162
Transformation and Relocation: Puerto Rico's Operation Bootstrap	p. 179
Politics and Culture in the Epoch of PPD Hegemony	p. 201
PPD Hegemony Undermined: From Mobilization to Recessuibm 1960-1975	p. 223
Rethinking the Past, Betting on the Future: Cultural Debates from the Sixties to the Eighties	p. 247
Economic Stagnation and Political Deadlock, 1976-1992	p. 267
Politics and Social Conflict in the Epoch of Neoliberalism, 1992-2004	p. 291
Neonationalism, Postmodernism, and Other Debates	p. 316
Conclusion	p. 335
Notes	p. 343
Bibliographical Essay	p. 383
Indix	p. 399
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