History of Puerto Rico

Catalog description

This course will introduce Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans within the context of the Carribbean island and their communities within the United States. After four centuries of Spanish colonial rule, Puerto Rico was incorporated into the U.S. since 1898. Since then, the link between the island and the US has tightened political, economic, and cultural ties between the two entities, in some ways eroding, but in others reinforcing, Puerto Ricans' sense of community and nationhood. While the integration between peoples resulted in renegotiation of power where Puerto Ricans were issued some rights to control their own internal affairs on the island, some of the basic features of the original colonial equation have actually remained the same; in some respects, they have only become more acute.