US Imperialism and Puerto Rican Needleworkers: Sovereignty, Citizenship, and Women's Labor in a Deep History of Neoliberal Trade

2020 ◽  
Vol 98 ◽  
pp. 142-172
Author(s):  
Aimee Loiselle
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Puerto Rican Women ◽  
Us Imperialism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Operation Bootstrap ◽  
A Site

AbstractIn 1898, US occupation of Puerto Rico opened possibilities for experimentation with manufacturing, investment, tariffs, and citizenship because the Treaty of Paris did not address territorial incorporation. Imperial experimentation started immediately and continued through the liberal policies of the New Deal and World War II, consistently reproducing drastic exceptions. These exceptions were neither permanent nor complete, but the rearrangements of sovereignty and citizenship established Puerto Rico as a site of potential and persistent exemption. Puerto Rican needleworkers were central to the resulting colonial industrialization-not as dormant labor awaiting outside developmental forces but as skilled workers experienced in production. Following US occupation, continental trade agents and manufacturers noted the intricate needlework of Puerto Rican women and their employment in homes and small shops for contractors across the island. Their cooptation and adaptation of this contracting system led to the colonial industrialization, generating bureaucratic, financial, and legal infrastructure later used in Operation Bootstrap, a long-term economic plan devised in the 1940s and 1950s. Labor unions and aggrieved workers contested and resisted this colonial industrialization. They advocated their own proposals and pushed against US economic policies and insular business management. Throughout these fights, the asymmetrical power of the federal government and industrial capital allowed the colonial regime to assert US sovereignty while continually realigning exemptions and redefining citizenship for liberal economic objectives. Rather than representing a weakening of the nation-state, this strong interventionist approach provided scaffolding for Operation Bootstrap, which became a model for the neoliberal projects called export processing zones (EPZs).

scholarly journals Everything but the Car: The Carport as Social Space in Puerto Rican Domestic Architecture

2021 ◽  
Vol 90-91 ◽  
pp. 43-58
Author(s):  
Gloria M. Colom Braña
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Functional Space ◽  
Free Fall ◽  
The United States ◽  
Domestic Sphere ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
A Site

The carport, a nondescript functional space within a majority of Puerto Rican houses, often accommodates different social practices throughout the year. Daily household activities such as laundry and childcare often take place in the carport, but it is also a site for landmark events such as birthdays, social gatherings, and Christmas parties. Designed exclusively for car storage, the carport is often used for everything but the car. In order to understand how this space came to be repurposed, this article focuses on the history of the introduction of the car and carport in Puerto Rico. The transformation of a single-use space into an all-purpose space with distinct cultural signifiers happened soon after the spread of the carport. The history of the colonial relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico is tied to the story of changes to the North American house form, particularly the most utilitarian spaces within the domestic sphere. The carport reflects the dreams and illusions of upward mobility and how that came crashing down in a seemingly economic free fall that began roughly in 2007 and has continued spiraling out of control.

Caring for Labor History

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 65-69
Author(s):  
Emma Amador
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Labor History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Reproductive Politics ◽  
Domestic Worker ◽  
Puerto Rican Women ◽  
History Of

This essay charts how the author’s interest in labor history and the history of care work were inspired by her own family history of migrations from Puerto Rico to the United States. It considers how her grandmother’s stories about being a child needle worker in Puerto Rico and a migrant domestic worker in New York led her to think critically about the connections and overlap between the home and workplace in the lives of Puerto Rican women. As a student, investigating her personal history led her to discover a rich tradition of Puerto Rican feminist labor history that raised questions about reproductive politics and caring labor that remain pressing in our contemporary moment.

Puerto Rican Needle Workers and Colonial Migrations: Deindustrialization as Pathways Lost

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 40-54
Author(s):  
Aimee Loiselle
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Financial Stability ◽  
Linear Logic ◽  
Garment Industry ◽  
The South ◽  
Puerto Rican Studies ◽  
Puerto Rican Women ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of

The dominant narrative of U.S. deindustrialization opens with the Northeast as the definitive starting point for industry followed by a direct linear relocation to the South and then the Global South. In this framework, deindustrialization appears to have a logic, a rational pathway following cheaper and compliant labor. When Puerto Rican needleworkers become visible in the history of the textile and garment industry, however, their colonial migrations complicate deindustrialization, and its linear logic collapses. From the perspective of these colonial women, industrialization of Puerto Rico began at the turn of the twentieth century - the same time factories and mills increased in the South. Thousands of women also migrated to the Northeast mainland, especially from the 1950s to the 1970s, when many white workers were mourning the loss of textile and garment jobs. Puerto Rican women moved to the old factories of the Northeast, which had become outposts for large transnational corporations that did not relocate their manufacturing in a direct geographic path but rather spread their processes over any arrangement that offered the best cost-benefit analysis. For Puerto Rican women, employment in the plants of the Northeast during the 1960s and 1970s offered hope rather than despair, and many took pride in meeting their quotas and providing wages for their families. In the 1980s, when the Reagan administration initiated major reforms to financial policies and the practices of leveraged buyouts made closing old plants a better return on investment, Puerto Rican women mourned the loss of jobs in an industry many experts had already declared ‘dead.’ Fragmentation of the archives between Puerto Rican studies and U.S. labor history have allowed for a simplistic narrative of deindustrialization and an erasure of the losses and disappointments of women who left Puerto Rico for the promise of higher wages in the postwar Northeast mainland. When the oral histories and documents related to the migrations of Puerto Rican needleworkers become visible in the larger history of the ‘American working class’, we see deindustrialization as sprawling and contingent rather than as linear and naturalized. Puerto Rican studies scholars have written about needleworkers as part of their field with particular attention to gender as it relates to notions of motherhood, but this article sets the women as American workers into the losses of the textile and garment industry without eliding their specificity as migrating and racialized colonial labor. In addition, the women expressed grief that went beyond losing a specific job - many of these workers lost their place in the U.S. workforce and the promise of financial stability as they became associated with racialized poverty and welfare debates.

Rates of Cesarean Delivery Among Puerto Rican Women - Puerto Rico and the U.S. Mainland, 1992-2002

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Varela-Flores ◽  
◽  
H. Vázquez-Rivera ◽  
F. Menacker ◽  
Y. Ahmed ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Cesarean Delivery ◽  
Puerto Rican Women ◽  
The U.S

scholarly journals Aging in Puerto Rico: A Comparison of Health Status Among Island Puerto Rican and Mainland U.S. Older Adults

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 1056-1078 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Pérez ◽  
Jennifer A. Ailshire
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Health Status ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Puerto Ricans ◽  
Adult Population ◽  
Aging Research ◽  
Puerto Rican Women ◽  
Self Rated Health ◽  
Elderly Health ◽  
Older Adult Population

Objective: To characterize the health status of older island Puerto Ricans, a segment of the U.S. population that has been largely overlooked in aging research. Method: Data from the 2002 Puerto Rican Elderly Health Conditions Project and the 2002 Health and Retirement Study are used to examine differences in disease, disability, and self-rated health among island Puerto Ricans and the mainland U.S.-born older adult population. Differences are further examined by gender. Results: Island Puerto Ricans were less likely to have heart disease, stroke, lung disease, cancer, activities of daily living (ADL) limitations, and poor self-rated health, but more likely to have hypertension and diabetes. Island Puerto Rican women had worse health relative to island Puerto Rican men. Discussion: Recent challenges in the funding and provision of health care in Puerto Rico are worrisome given the large number of aging island adults, many of whom have hypertension and diabetes, two conditions that require long-term medical care.

Conclusion and Epilogue

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirwin R. Shaffer
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
University Students ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Economic Recession ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Private Lands ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University ◽  
Joint State

This concluding chapter explores the legacy of anarchism in Puerto Rico. While anarchist agitation and organizing came to an end in the early 1920s, individual anarchists continued to write to anarchist publications in New York and Havana. In addition, the global economic recession that began in 2008, coupled with efforts by the Puerto Rican government and the Universidad de Puerto Rico to impose new fees on university students in 2010, gave birth to new interest in anarchism on the island as anarchist groups took to the internet, the cafés, and the university grounds. They began working with other groups in cross-sectarian alliances, offering classes on anarchism, reviving anarchist theatre, and drawing attention to the ravages of joint state–corporate attempts to seize private lands. In short, these new Black Flag Boricuas were resurrecting in the present the very history of anarchist agitation and antiauthoritarianism developed a century earlier.

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