Almost Citizens (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781108415491)

Almost Citizens lays out the tragic story of how the United States denied Puerto Ricans full citizenship following annexation of the island in 1898. As America became an overseas empire, a handful of remarkable Puerto Ricans debated with US legislators, presidents, judges, and others over who was a citizen and what citizenship meant. This struggle caused a fundamental shift in constitution law: away from the post-Civil War regime of citizenship, rights, and statehood, and toward doctrines that accommodated racist imperial governance. Erman's gripping account shows how, in the wake of the Spanish-American War, administrators, lawmakers, and presidents together with judges deployed creativity and ambiguity to transform constitutional meaning for a quarter of a century. The result is a history in which the United States and Latin America, Reconstruction and empire, and law and bureaucracy intertwine.

Author: Sam Erman
ISBN-10: 1108415490
ISBN-13: 9781108415491
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 12/13/2018
Pages: 290
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.30lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.20w x 1.10d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 05/01/2019