Copyright by Mónica Alexandra Jiménez 2015
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Copyright by Mónica Alexandra Jiménez 2015 The Dissertation Committee for Mónica Alexandra Jiménez Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: “American” State of Exception: Reimagining the Puerto Rican Colony and the Nationalist Enemy under United States Rule, 1900-1940 Committee: Frank Guridy, Supervisor Jossianna Arroyo-Martínez Benjamin C. Brower Karen Engle Virginia Garrard-Burnett “American” State of Exception: Reimagining the Puerto Rican Colony and the Nationalist Enemy under United States Rule, 1900-1940 by Mónica Alexandra Jiménez, B.A., M.A., J.D. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2015 Dedication For Germain Acknowledgements I am grateful to my family, friends and mentors for their support and guidance throughout this process. In particular, I’d like to thank my parents, Julio and Pura, who supported my decision to leave my burgeoning career as an attorney to pursue my academic goals, despite their reservations. To my brothers, Julio and Axel, my sister-in- law, Maria, and my niece, Natasha, who have cheered and encouraged me through this endeavor, especially when grief and loss threatened to derail it. Thank you also to my loving community of friends in Austin and at the University of Texas who held me up when it seemed impossible to continue: Christopher Loperena, Courtney Morris, Martín Perna, Bianca Flores, Eddie Campos, Mohan Ambikaipaker, Briana Mohan, Lucia Osa- Melero, Amy Brown, Ava Purkiss, Blake Scott and Helen Pho. For their logistical and emotional support during my research in Washington, D.C., I am extremely grateful to Samantha Trepel, Aaron Lemon-Strauss, Betsy Strauss, and the Trepel Family. My research in Puerto Rico would not have been possible without the enthusiastic support of my cousins, Glorymar Maldonado and Hector Galarza, who opened up their home to me and helped me get oriented in San Juan. I am also thankful for the inspiration, guidance and companionship of my aunts, Cecilia and Gloria del Valle, my grandparents, Efrain Jiménez and Josefina Santos, and the large clan of my extended family who gleefully buoyed and distracted me during my time on the island. I am grateful also for the mentorship and guidance of my professors at the University of Texas and especially for my committee members, Jossianna Arroyo- v Martínez, Virginia Garrard-Burnett, Benjamin C. Brower and Karen Engle. Special gratitude goes to my supervisor, Frank Guridy, who has stuck with me, and this project in its various forms, since 2006. This project would not have been possible without the generous financial support of the Ford Foundation, the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies at the University of Texas, and the History Department at the University of Texas. For his enduring support, reassurance and love, I am grateful to my partner, Roger Reeves, who has been with me through some of my most difficult and most joyful moments. Finally, I owe immense gratitude to my brother, Germain, whose love for and pride in me was boundless. This work is for him. vi “American” State of Exception: Reimagining the Puerto Rican Colony and the Nationalist Enemy under United States Rule, 1900-1940 Mónica Alexandra Jiménez, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2015 Supervisor: Frank Guridy This dissertation reexamines the first forty years of the United States’ dominion over the island of Puerto Rico through the lens of the state of exception in order to analyze the role of race, nationalism and violence in the formation of the Puerto Rican nation. Focusing on the period before the creation of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the project first engages in a legal historical analysis in order to understand how U.S. Supreme Court decisions concerning race, citizenship and the application of the U.S. Constitution served to create a state of exception on the island. These early pronouncements, known as the Insular Cases, were steeped in white supremacist and social Darwinian ideas about race and civic readiness. Through these decisions the Court left the island in an uncertain position in which certain natural, unspecified rights were granted to its inhabitants but the protections of the U.S. Constitution were not. This exclusion from the established legal order opened up a space for the proliferation of violence. The second part of the project turns to an examination of the workings of violence and the rise of nationalism in response to U.S. policies. I argue that the state of vii exception led to both the growth of nationalism on the island and to its violent suppression. Though much has been written with respect to the colonial status of the island and its legal uncertainty during the first half of the twentieth century, a reexamination of this history using the state of exception helps further our understandings of the role of race and violence in that dynamic. Finally, this discussion also deepens our understanding of contemporary U.S. states of exception created in pursuit of both global markets and the purported “War on Terror.” viii Table of Contents Foreword ................................................................................................................ 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 4 Theoretical Framework: The State of Exception ......................................... 12 Argument ..................................................................................................... 30 Mapping the Dissertation ............................................................................. 34 Chapter One : The Exceptional Island: Racial Exclusion and the “American” State of Exception ...................................................................................... 40 The Marshall Trilogy: Plenary Power and the Unique Status of Native Americans ........................................................................................... 48 Dred Scott V. Sanford – Defining the “people” of the United States .......... 58 Downes v. Bidwell – The Birth of the Unincorporated Territory ................ 74 Guano Islands and the Critical Definition of “Appurtenance” .................... 80 Puerto Rico: Foreign in a Domestic Sense .................................................. 84 Conclusion ................................................................................................... 98 Chapter Two: Experimental Station: Biopolitics and the Formation of an “American” Colony ................................................................................. 101 Education, “Americanization,” and Language Policies ............................. 106 Labor Practices, Overpopulation and the Biopolitical State ...................... 121 Prostitution, Citizenship and the Nation .................................................... 140 Conclusion ................................................................................................. 153 Chapter Three . : Defining the Puerto Rican Nation: the Nationalism of Pedro Albizu Campos ......................................................................................... 156 When Pedro Met José: Albizu Campos’ Education in Nationalism .......... 164 The Radicalization of Albizu Campos ....................................................... 170 Radical, Catholic Nationalism ................................................................... 179 Albizu Campos and Marcus Garvey: Angry, Black Men of the Caribbean192 Conclusion ................................................................................................. 204 ix Chapter Four: Puerto Rico in the 1930s: Violence, Surveillance and Resistance in the State of Exception .......................................................................... 206 Corruption and Abuse in the Insular Police ............................................... 209 Labor, Protest, and the Insular Police ........................................................ 229 Nationalism, Surveillance and Violence .................................................... 248 Conclusion ................................................................................................. 280 Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 282 Bibliography ...................................................................................................... 290 x Foreword The initial genesis for this project took place ten years ago while I pursued a J.D. and an M.A. in Latin American Studies. While researching the unique legal relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States, I stumbled upon the Insular Cases, a group of U.S. Supreme Court cases that established the legal framework for the island’s relationship with Puerto Rico. These cases, which I had not encountered in my Constitutional Law classes, had been decided in the early years of the 20th century and were clearly creatures of that particular historical moment. They spoke of the need to maintain racial others, such as island residents, outside of the United States political body. They evinced a clear desire to dominate and control the island and the potential profits therein, while demonstrating an apparent wariness of the mixed-race people who resided there, of their foreign language and