Blurred Borders: Transnational Migration between the Hispanic Caribbean and the United States

CHAPTER FOUR: A Transnational Colonial Migration: Puerto Rico’s Farm Labor Program

A Transnational Colonial Migration Puerto Rico’s Farm Labor Program Puerto Ricans in the United States have been dubbed “colonial immigrants,” as U.S. citizens who can travel freely to the mainland but are not fully protected by the U.S. Constitution on the island.1 Colonial immigrants tend to move abroad primarily for economic reasons, live in segregated quarters, work in low-status jobs, and attend inferior schools in their metropolitan countries (Clara Rodríguez 1989: 19). As Ramón Grosfoguel (2004) has argued, Puerto Rico has much in common with other Caribbean dependencies that have sent large numbers of people to their European “mother countries.” In particular, Puerto Ricans in the United States and Antilleans in France and the Netherlands share subordinate positions within their metropolitan societies, largely as a consequence of colonial racism, despite conditions of legal equality. Although colonial immigrants hold metropolitan passports and are entitled to metropolitan subsidies, they often experience discrimination because of their physical and cultural characteristics (see also Cervantes-Rodríguez, Grosfoguel, and Mielants 2009; Clegg and Pantojas-García 2009; de Jong 2005; Giraud 2002; Milia-Marie-Luce 2002, 2007; and Oostindie and Klinkers 2003). For some analysts, Puerto Rico resembles a “postcolonial colony,” combining elements of classical colonial rule with political autonomy, a relatively high standard of living, and a strong national culture (Duany 2002; Flores 2000, 2008). The island’s political status is largely based on majority will rather than sheer external imposition. Puerto Rican voters (some 95 percent) are now split between supporting the Commonwealth and the island’s annexation as the fifty-first state of the U.S. union, with less than 4 a transnational colonial migration 82 5 percent favoring independence. Most value their U.S. citizenship, the freedom of movement that it entails, and “permanent union” with the United States. Even the president of the Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño (PIP), or Puerto Rican Independence Party, Rubén Berríos, has advocated the unrestricted entry of Puerto Ricans into the United States, should the island become a sovereign republic (Magdalys Rodríguez 1997). At the same time, Puerto Ricans of all political ideologies, not just independence supporters , assert their identities in nationalistic terms. At any rate, Puerto Rico occupies a marginal space within the U.S. academy and particularly within postcolonial and transnational studies, partly because it is officially recognized neither as a colony nor as a nation in its own right. Yet, as I argue below, the island’s government was one of the first modern states, colonial or postcolonial, to organize migration transnationally. Scholars have recently revisited Puerto Rico’s colonial history, national identity, and diaspora from various viewpoints, including transnational, postcolonial , postmodern, gender, queer, and cultural studies (see Aranda 2007; Duany 2002; Flores 2008; Grosfoguel 2003; La Fountain–Stokes 2009; Martínez–San Miguel 2003; Negrón-Muntaner 2004, 2007; Pabón 2002; Gina Pérez 2004; and Ramos-Zayas 2003). Most scholars no longer question whether Puerto Rico is a colony of the United States (but see Soto-Crespo 2009). They often discuss, sometimes angrily, the precise form of U.S. colonialism on the island, the extent to which it has acquired “postcolonial” traits such as linguistic and cultural autonomy, and the possibility of waging an effective decolonization process. Puerto Rico’s national identity is contested as fiercely as ever. What distinguishes current academic discussions is that many intellectuals, especially those who align themselves with postmodernism , are highly critical of nationalist discourses. Other debates focus on population movements between the island and the U.S. mainland. Some outside observers deem Puerto Rican migration as internal or domestic to the United States, while others, including myself, refer to it as transnational or diasporic. Much of this controversy hinges on the significance of geographic, cultural, linguistic, and even racial borders between the island and the U.S. mainland, as opposed to legal boundaries. As I show below, Puerto Rico occupies a liminal status between a state of the U.S. union and a separate country. From the standpoint of international law, the island’s inhabitants are subject to U.S. sovereignty; within the United States, they are often treated as “legal aliens.” In this chapter, I approach the Puerto Rican diaspora as a transnational a transnational colonial migration 83 colonial migration. In so doing, I define Puerto Rico as a nation, an imagined community with its own territory, history, language, and culture...