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A Hesitant Unveiling of America's Colonial Problem in Puerto Rico
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986
References
1 See Heine, Jorge, ‘The Shattered Showcase’, The New York Times Book Review, 22 07 1984, p. 9Google Scholar. Falcón's, Angelo reactions are found in The New York Times, 12 08. 1984Google Scholar and in the Sunday San Juan Star Magazine, 16 Sept. 1984, p. 7.
2 Lewis, Gordon K., ‘Dependence Without End’, The Times Literary Supplement, 21 09. 1984.Google Scholar
3 An exception has been Richard M. Morse's review focusing on content. See his ‘Embarrassing Colony’ in The New York Review of Books, 6 December 1984, pp. 17–19.
4 The attempt proved to be successful thanks in part to the impulse provided by reactions such as that by Angelo Falcón and by the Institute for Puerto Rican Policy of New York directed by Falcón. The institute formally protested to the Twentieth Century Fund and circulated a memorandum dated 22 Oct. 1984 to members of the National Puerto Rican Policy Network encouraging them to review the book and to write to the Fund expressing their concerns about the publication. The book certainly contains unqualified declarations projecting the impression that Carr partakes in the derogatory sentiments and stereotyped views about Puerto Ricans commonly held by American colonialists. However, there are other more relevant problems and faults not addressed by previous reviewers.
5 Particularly insightful is Carr's demonstration of how the United States was forced by Puerto Rican resistance to abandon original plans of ‘Americanizing’ Puerto Ricans through the imposition of the English language and American values in formal education, only to succeed later with the more subtle process of ‘americanization through consumption’.
6 Through Carr's analysis, the reader is able to gain an insight on how these groupings perceive each other, on their modes of operation and on their respective strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately, the author is quite biased against pro-independence movements and his analysis of all three sectors exaggerates the emotional underpinnings of their respective problems and contradictions.
7 In this case Carr arrived at an unwarranted prediction on the basis of partial, incomplete evidence. In fact, the Comisión Estadista which executed an extensive proselytizing campaign for statehood during the 1980–2 period became virtually paralysed after the PNP division and increasingly inactive as the 1984 electoral campaign became closer. The PNP leaders dedicated their efforts to more pressing activities related to the re-election of Carlos Romero Barceló, leaving aside political education on the status question.
8 The absence of a coherent theoretical framework permeates Raymond Carr's treatment of Puerto Rican society and politics. This is the real problem behind excessively detailed descriptions lacking in-depth analysis as well as behind the ambiguities and contradictory statements commented on below. Implicitly, the author seems to follow the theory of perceptions and misperceptions in his analysis of United States–Puerto Rico relations. At the same time, he rejects dependency theories for taking an ‘explicit anti-American edge’, while he seems to take a pro-American edge, but unsystematically borrows from the dependency conceptual framework! See, for example, p. 227 where Carr analyses the impact of Western recession upon the weaker capitalist economies with arguments similar to those of the dependency theories he rejects.
9 See Bambirra, Vania, El Capitalismo Dependiente Latinoamericano (Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1982)Google Scholar, particularly pp. 23–136. Type B countries were all those whose primary export sector was directly controlled by foreign investments, mostly American. Consequently, they developed their industrial sector rather late (after 1945) through the attraction of foreign investments instead of having early import substitution industrialization on the basis of investments made by a national rather than foreign bourgeoisie as was the case of Type A countries. It seems relevant to have in mind that during then 1920s many ‘independent’ Caribbean and Central American countries were virtually United States protectorates with Customs in the hands of U.S. envoys.
10 The author discusses several traits of the Puerto Rican economy which can hardly be found in any ‘regional economy’ of a central, developed capital economy as that of the United States no matter how ‘marginal’ or ‘poor’ that regional economy is. Some examples of these traits are: the hypertrophy of the tertiary or service sector, the massive levels of unemployment, the proportion of dependence on external capital for industrial investment and the very great dependence on federal transfers observed in Puerto Rico. Basic structural characteristics, therefore, make the Puerto Rican economy resemble more other Caribbean and Latin American economies than a ‘regional economy within the developed economy of the United States’. This similarity between Puerto Rico and other Caribbean or Latin American countries vis-à-vis the United States has been illustrated in a review of Carr's book by Richard Morse with reference to U.S. military influence: ‘if we consider all of Latin America to be a vast region that has doggedly preserved its identity and persevered in an intermittent struggle for internal and external liberation for five centuries, one may well ask whether Puerto Rico is as special a case as the local debate over political status suggests. Is the use of Vieques for the U.S. navy target practice more colonial than the use of the whole nation of Honduras as a platform for counterrevolution?’, op. cit., p. 19.
11 See Wallerstein., ImmanuelThe Capitalist World Economy (London: Cambridge University Press, 1980).Google Scholar
12 References to the Puerto Rican economy as an integrated regional economy of the United States are found on pages 37, 210 and 212 of the Vintage edition of Carr's book. On the other hand, references to the Puerto Rican economy as a distinct Caribbean economy are found on page 61, where Carr even says that the Puerto Rican economy has the problems of a ‘banana republic’ and on pages 206, 210 and 214 of the same edition.
13 Carr's description of the unsuccessful efforts to obtain autonomic growth for Commonwealth status is, however, very limited. The author apparently did not benefit from an extremely useful analysis of the problems involved, particularly those concerning the 1967 plebiscite, contained in Idsa Alegría Ortega, La Comisíón de Status: su historia y significación (Río Piedras: Editorial Universitaria, 1982).
14 See Borg, Arthur, ‘The Problem of Puerto Rico's Political Status’, US Department of State, Senior Seminar in Foreign Policy, 05 1975Google Scholar and Jeffrey Puryear, ‘Only the United States can Decolonize Puerto Rico’, Ford Foundation, 1983.
15 Incredibly, the author puts quotation marks to the word colonial in several parts of the book as if to cast doubts on the authenticity of his very subtitle.