Puerto Rico and U.S. Empire in the Caribbean, 1898-1936

This study examines Puerto Rico’s role as a “bridge between the Americas” from the War of 1898 to the 1930s, and the consequences for inter-American relations and Puerto Rican national identity. Specifically, I address four central questions. First, how and why did U.S. policymakers incorporate Puerto Ricans into their foreign policy initiatives? Secondly, did the Puerto Rican presence during U.S. occupations further Washington’s goals of stability and democratization? How did interactions between Puerto Ricans and other Latin Americans contribute to, or militate against, transnational activism? Finally, how did overseas service inform debates in Puerto Rico concerning Americanization and the relationship between the island and the rest of the Americas? I find that policymakers prized Puerto Ricans as cultural intermediaries who could help to ensure the cooperation of occupied populations. Yet often, those populations identified Puerto Ricans as colonial sepoys. Their presence thus encouraged the development of nationalist resistance and a transnational latinidad forged in opposition to the United States. Excluded from that identity, Puerto Ricans developed a cultural nationalism defined by their rhetorical distance from both the mainland and the rest of Latin America. In telling the story of Puerto Rican participation in U.S. occupations in Latin America, I am fundamentally reinterpreting the nature of U.S. regional hegemony. Puerto Rico’s role as a showcase for American democracy and progress during the Cold War has been well documented. Yet this study contends that Puerto Ricans served as representatives of the American model for the hemisphere decades earlier, during the “age of empire.” Highlighting the role of these colonial subjects in projecting American power allows for a clearer understanding of U.S. foreign policy and its contribution to the growth of hemispheric anti-Americanism. In addition to its significance for the study of diplomatic and imperial history, my research intersects with several themes central to the Puerto Rican historiography. I examine the role U.S. imperial service played in Puerto Rican social and political struggles, assess how it redefined the relationship between the colony and the metropole, and explore its contribution to the ongoing negotiation of Puerto Rican cultural nationalism