Malignant citizenship: race, imperialism, and Puerto Rico-United States entanglements

Abstract

As inhabitants of a US territory, Puerto Ricans experience their American citizenship under a set of constraints, shaped by processes of colonization, imperialism, and racialization. This paper is concerned with thinking through and developing a theorization of citizenship and life in Puerto Rico, by exploring the history and legislation of US citizenship for inhabitants of the island. It posits that the citizenship held by Puerto Ricans is a kind of disguised malignancy that cannot be understood solely by charting the legal history and formal status of the residents of the island. Instead, the citizenship of Puerto Ricans must be understood as a deeply racialized product of centuries of colonization and imperialism, the consequences of which are not easily shed and cannot be accounted for through liberal political theory. Rather, citizenship actually works to simultaneously cement and invisibilize the ways in which Puerto Rican lives are continuously rendered less valuable and their deaths less grievable. Regarding the citizenship of Puerto Ricans, I argue that racialization and racism are inherent to current United States-Puerto Rico relations. As such, this paper articulates ‘malignant citizenship’ as a term which accounts for the colonial/racial foundations and current iterations of citizenship for Puerto Ricans.