Foreign in a Domestic Sense

Puerto Rico, American Expansion, and the Constitution

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Edited by Christina Duffy Burnett and Burke Marshall

Duke University Press

Due/Published June 2001, 464 pages, paper

ISBN 0822326981

In this study of American imperialism, leading legal scholars address the problem of the U.S. territories.

More than four million United States 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 the largest and most populous of the territories, Puerto Rico, Foreign in a Domestic Sense examines 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, 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 offers a study of race, cultural identity, and the Constitution; it also makes a contribution to the study of American federalism, serves as a foundation for substantive debate on Puerto Rico's status, and a urgent need for dialogue on territorial status between the mainlandd and the territories.

Contributors. José Juli‡n Álvarez Gonz‡lez, Roberto Aponte Toro, Christina Duffy Burnett, José A. Cabranes, Sanford Levinson, Burke Marshall, Gerald L. Neuman, Angel R. Oquendo, Juan Perea, Efrén Rivera Ramos, Rogers M. Smith, E. Robert Statham Jr., Brook Thomas, Richard Thornburgh, Juan R. Torruella, José Trias Monge, Mark Tushnet, Mark Weiner

"I can hardly contain my enthusiasm for this project, which brings together an array of authoritative scholars in the field. Foreign in a Domestic Sense is the most important work of its kind of our generation, a book that advances the scholarship while having a material impact on current and future debates about Puerto Rico's self-determination."--Francisco A. Scarano, author of Puerto Rico: Cinco Siglos de Historia

Contents

Preface
Introduction: Between the Foregin and the Domestic: The Doctrine of Territorial Incorporation, Invented and Reinvented--Christina Duffy Burnett and Burke Marshall

I. Expansion and History
Some Common Ground--José A. Cabranes
Teutonic Constitutionalism: The Role of Ethno-Juridical Discourse in the Spanish-American War--Mark S. Weiner
A Constitution led by the Flag: The Insular Cases and the Metaphor of Incorporation--Brook Thomas
Deconstructing Colonialism: The ÒUnincorporated TerritoryÓ as a Category of Domination--Efrén Rivera Ramos

II. History and Constitution
Installing the Insular Cases into the Canon of Constitutional Law--Sanford Levinson
Fulfilling Manifest Destiny: Conquest, Race, and the Insular Cases / Juan Perea
U.S. Territorial Expansion: Extended Republicanism versus Hyperextended Expansionism--E. Robert Statham Jr.
Constitutionalism and Individual Rights in the Territories--Gerald L. Neuman

III. Constitution and Membership
Partial Membership and Liberal Political Theory--Mark Tushnet
Injustice According to Law: The Insular Cases and other Oddities--José Tr’as Monge
One Hundred Years of Solitude: Puerto Rico's American Century--Juan R. Torreulla
A Tale of Distorting Mirrors: One Hundred Years of Puerto Rico's Sovereignty Imbroglio--Roberto Aponte Toro

IV. Membership and Recognition
Law, Language, and Statehood: The Role of English in the Great State of Puerto Rico--José Julián Alvarez González
Puerto Rican National Identity and United States Pluralism--Angel Ricardo Oquendo
Puerto Rican Separatism and United States Federalism--Richard Thornburgh
The Bitter Roots of Puerto Rican Citizenship--Rogers M. Smith

Appendix: A Note on the Insular Cases--Christina Duffy Burnett