War, Modernity and Remembrance
When in 1949, Colonel William Harris was assigned to be the new commander of the 65th Infantry Regiment, his Army buddies kidded him about the “rum and Coca Cola” unit he was…
Category: The Politics of Identity
Vieques: an Update
The turquoise blue water gently laps at the fine-white sand beach dotted by coconut palms. Verdant rock outcroppings frame the scene, so picture-perfect that it merits the cliché of…
The New Politics of Decolonization
Vieques has been at the frontline of Puerto Rican struggles for decolonization and a key element in the negotiations of the colonial relationship and cititizenship for decades. In the 1940s and…
National Identity Politics in Puerto Rico
I remember my high school times in San Juan in the late 60s. I had convinced my parents to let me switch from an elite English-dominant institution to the Spanish-dominant public school…
Double Discrimination
Upon asking a young woman living with HIV to describe HIV stigma and discrimination, she responded, “It is a person that is not worth anything, that is not worth anything, is a useless…
Boricuas vs. Nuyoricans—Indeed!
Photographs in a controversial video feature smiling fair-skinned beauty contest winners and fashion models contrasted with images of scantily dressed, full-bodied, dark-skinned women in…
Recolonization or Decolonization?
he status debate is our “national sport,” we Puerto Ricans like to say. After more than a century of U.S. colonialism, the issue of the status of the island is still unresolved. The first impasse is a…
