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July 2004, Volume 2, Number 2, Pages 140-159
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| Article |
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| "How They Ignore Our Rights as American Citizens": Puerto Rican Migrants and the Politics of Citizenship in the New Deal Era |
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| Lorrin Thomas1 |
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1Rutgers University, Camden, NJ
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| Abstract |
| This article examines how Puerto Rican migrants in New York City made claims on their US citizenship - conferred on all Puerto Ricans by the 1917 Jones Act - as they tried to gain a foothold in local politics during the decade of the 1930s, a period when definitions of membership in the nation were in flux for all Americans. Migrant activists across the political spectrum pointed to cracks in the façade of liberal citizenship and its promises: the social, civic, legal equality that eluded residents of el barrio and other poor neighborhoods, and the commitment to "freedom and democracy" elsewhere in the world that had yet to be extended to the island of Puerto Rico. The article argues that migrants' diasporic form of "rights talk" - combining local political concerns with demands for Puerto Rican sovereignty - challenged representatives of the political mainstream to defend their democratic liberalism in practice.
Latino Studies (2004) 2, 140-159. doi:10.1057/palgrave.lst.8600090 |
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| Keywords |
| Puerto Ricans; citizenship; New York City history; New York City politics |
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