Almost Citizens: Puerto Rico, the U.S. Constitution, and Empire

Almost Citizens: Puerto Rico, the U.S. Constitution, and Empire
ISBN-10
1108244734
ISBN-13
9781108244732
Category
History
Language
English
Published
2018-12-13
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Author
Sam Erman

Description

Almost Citizens lays out the tragic story of how the United States denied Puerto Ricans full citizenship following annexation of the island in 1898. As America became an overseas empire, a handful of remarkable Puerto Ricans debated with US legislators, presidents, judges, and others over who was a citizen and what citizenship meant. This struggle caused a fundamental shift in constitution law: away from the post-Civil War regime of citizenship, rights, and statehood and toward doctrines that accommodated racist imperial governance. Erman's gripping account shows how, in the wake of the Spanish-American War, administrators, lawmakers, and presidents together with judges deployed creativity and ambiguity to transform constitutional meaning for a quarter of a century. The result is a history in which the United States and Latin America, Reconstruction and empire, and law and bureaucracy intertwine.

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