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Abstract
In 2016 the Congress of the United States approved the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA), with the stated purpose of creating an oversight board that would address the restructuring of Puerto Rico’s debt, and facilitate the rapid creation of critical infrastructure. This board, locally known as “La Junta,” has been challenged by heterogeneous resistance comprising organized political movements, intellectual discussions, and practices of everyday resistance. I argue the current political imaginary is filled with arguments and actions that are going beyond the national liberation frame (or colonial entrapment) towards a decolonial “national consciousness.” This essay has three aims. First, by discussing different colonial norms and discourses established throughout the twentieth century, I will introduce the concept of “colonial entrapment” as the dominant paradigm of PR-USA colonial/racial relations. Second, drawing on Fanon’s work on colonial violence, revolution and decolonization, I will discuss how it seeks to overcome colonial entrapment and thus how it may provide effective theoretical and practical tools for a resistance movement with a wider intersectional approach as provided by the lens of national consciousness. Thirdly, I will conclude by underlining the post-Hurricane Maria scenario and how it reflects the continuity of colonial entrapment.
Acknowledgments
A special thanks to Ari Jerrems for his help translating this essay, and to Marcelo Luzzi for his comments and insights.
Notes
1 The Foraker Act established the first civilian government after two years of US military rule. The US president would appoint a governor after Congress’s approval, as well as other relevant positions within the island’s administration.
2 The PROMESA acronym also stands for “promise” in Spanish, contributing to the dominant narrative that this law represents the Federal government’s compromise to reorganize Puerto Rico’s economy and create infrastructure for economic growth.
3 On 19 September 2017 category-5 Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, causing major damage to infrastructure, leaving most residents without electricity for months. Local government listed 64 fatalities, but the New England Journal of Medicine estimates 4,645 deaths caused by lack of electricity, potable water, or medical attention. See “Mortality in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria” at https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1803972.
4 Puerto Rico’s status under the plenary power of the US Congress was again demonstrated in the latest of the Insular Cases, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico v. Sánchez Valle (2016). In this case the Supreme Court ruled that the government of Puerto Rico had no jurisdiction to exercise “double jeopardy” over a federal convicted by applying the 10th amendment of the US Constitution. By denying this possibility, the Court clearly stated that Puerto Rico’s government is not considered a territory of the United States (therefore the 10th amendment does not apply and does not provide the possibility of reserved powers as for states), nor is a separate entity or a sovereign state. In this sense, the territoriality clause prevailed, so no normative changes have occurred in the Puerto Rico–US relationship since the establishment of the Commonwealth in 1952.
5 Hearings before the Committee on Public Lands, House of Representatives, 81st Cong., 2d Sess., on H.R. 7674 and S. 3336, Serial No. 35 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1959), 49–50.
6 This point was raised by the former Senator of the State of Wyoming, Joseph C. O’Mahoney.
7 Data obtained from the official website of the Comisión Estatal de Elecciones, http://www.ceepur.org.
9 https://www.facebook.com/seacabaronlaspromesas/. For more on Puerto Rico’s economic crisis, social resistance and grassroots movements, see https://www.puertoricosyllabus.com/resistance-and-new-imaginaries/se-acabaron-las-promesas-disrupting-promesa/.
10 Fernández Retamar’s (Citation2016b) claim for a subversive identity, drawing on Ezequiel Martínez Estrada’s statement: “We are not Europeans.”
12 Following ongoing research conducted by Ibrahim López Hernández (research assistant at the Instituto Nacional de Energía y Sostenibilidad Isleña) on Puerto Rico’s energy transition, Casa Pueblo’s approach as a community based initiative focuses on providing renewable energy to families specifically in the town of Adjuntas. Although they have made accessible their strategies and technical skills for other communities, they understand that every community should decide their priorities, strategies, and practices.