Imagining the Puerto Rican Nation: Recent Works on Cultural Identity

Puerto Rico has a peculiar status among the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. As one of Spain's last two colonies in the New World (along with Cuba), Puerto Rico experienced the longest period of Hispanic influence in the region. Since 1898, however, the island has been an "unincorporated territory" of the United States and has been exposed to an intense penetration by U.S. culture rarely equaled in other Latin American countries. Yet Puerto Rico displays a stronger cultural identity than most Caribbean countries. Thus at the end of the twentieth century, Puerto Rico represents the apparent paradox of a stateless nation that has not assimilated into the U.S. orbit. Despite nearly a century