Foreign in a Domestic Sense: Puerto Rico American Expansion and the Constitution (American Encounters/Global Interactions)

About this book

In this groundbreaking study of American imperialism leading legal scholars address the problem of the U.S. territories. Foreign in a Domestic Sense will redefine the boundaries of constitutional scholarship. More than four million U.S. citizens currently live in five unincorporated U.S. territories. The inhabitants of these vestiges of an American empire are denied full representation in Congress and cannot vote in presidential elections. Focusing on Puerto Rico the largest and most populous of the territories Foreign in a Domestic Sense sheds much-needed light on the United States unfinished colonial experiment and its legacy of racially rooted imperialism while insisting on the centrality of these marginal regions in any serious treatment of American constitutional history. For one hundred years Puerto Ricans have struggled to define their place in a nation that neither wants them nor wants to let them go. They are caught in a debate too politicized to yield meaningful answers. Meanwhile doubts concerning the constitutionality of keeping colonies have languished on the margins of mainstream scholarship overlooked by scholars outside the island and ignored by the nation at large. This book does more than simply fill a glaring omission in the study of race cultural identity and the Constitution; it also makes a crucial contribution to the study of American federalism serves as a foundation for substantive debate on Puerto Ricos status and meets an urgent need for dialogue on territorial status between the mainland and the territories. Contributors. Jos Julin lvarez Gonzlez Roberto Aponte Toro Christina Duffy Burnett Jos A. Cabranes Sanford Levinson Burke Marshall Gerald L. Neuman Angel R. Oquendo Juan Perea Efrn Rivera Ramos Rogers M. Smith E. Robert Statham Jr. Brook Thomas Richard Thornburgh Juan R. Torruella Jos Tras Monge Mark Tushnet Mark Weiner