Making never-never land : race and law in the creation of Puerto Rico / Mónica A. Jiménez.

Portion of title Race and law in the creation of Puerto Rico
SeriesLatinx histories
Latinx histories. ^A1461889
Contents Downes v. Bidwell: birth of an exceptional territory -- Legacies: racial exclusion and the "American" state of exception -- Puerto Rico remade -- No longer a non-self-governing area: creating the Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico -- Puerto Rico in never-never land.
Abstract "Puerto Rico has been an 'unincorporated territory' of the United States for over a century. For much of that time, the archipelago has been mostly invisible to US residents and neglected by the government. Recently, a series of crises, from outsized debt to climate fueled disasters, have led to massive protests and brought Puerto Rico greater visibility. Mónica A. Jiménez argues that to fully understand how and why Puerto Rico finds itself in this current moment of precarity, we must look to a larger history of US settler colonialism and racial exclusion in law. The federal policies and jurisprudence that created Puerto Rico exist within a larger pantheon of exclusionary, race-based laws and policies that have carved out 'states of exception' for racial undesirables: Native Americans, African Americans, and the inhabitants of the insular territories. This legal regime has allowed the federal government plenary or complete power over these groups. Jiménez brings these histories together to demonstrate that despite Puerto Rico's unique position as a twenty-first-century colony, its path to that place was not exceptional"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references and index.
Genre/formHistory.
LCCN 2023048938
ISBN9781469678443 hardcover
ISBN1469678446 hardcover
ISBN9781469678450 paperback
ISBN1469678454 paperback
ISBNelectronic book
ISBNelectronic book