Puerto Rican Jam: Rethinking Colonialism and Nationalism

The year 1998 represents the hundredth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Puerto Rico. Since that time, the “Puerto Rican archipelago” has come to extend from the island itself, up the Eastern seaboard, and as far west as California and Hawai’i. Puerto Rican Jam considers the issues unique to Puerto Rican culture and politics, issues often encapsulated in concerns about ethnicity, race, gender, and language.

Discussions of Puerto Rican cultural politics usually fall into one of two categories, nationalist or colonialist. Puerto Rican Jam moves beyond this narrow dichotomy, elaborating alternatives to dominant postcolonial theories, and includes essays written from the perspectives of groups that are not usually represented, such as gays and lesbians, youth, blacks, and women. The essays propose different ways of conceptualizing the U.S.-Puerto Rican colonial relationship, thus opening new spaces for political, social, economic, and cultural agency for Puerto Ricans on both the island and the continent. Among the topics discussed are the limitations of nationalism as a transformative and democratizing political discourse, the contradictory impact of American colonialism, language politics, and the 1928 U.S. congressional hearings on women’s suffrage in Puerto Rico.

A groundbreaking contribution to the study of colonialism, Puerto Rican Jam represents an important engagement with issues raised by American expansionism in the Caribbean.

Contributors: Jaime E. Benson-Arias, U of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez; Arlene Dávila, Syracuse U; Chloé S. Georas, SUNY, Binghamton; Manuel Guzmán, CUNY Graduate Center; Gladys M. Jiménez-Muñoz, SUNY, Oneonta;  Agustín Lao, SUNY, Binghamton; Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel, U of Puerto Rico; Mariano Négron-Portillo, U of Puerto Rico; José Quiroga, George Washington U;  Raquel Z. Rivera, CUNY Graduate Center; Alberto Sandoval Sánchez, Mount Holyoke College;  Kelvin A. Santiago-Valles, SUNY, Binghamton.

Frances Negrón-Muntaner is a doctoral candidate in comparative literature at Rutgers University, as well as a poet and filmmaker. Ramón Grosfoguel is assistant professor of sociology at the State University of New York, Binghamton.