Válvula De Escape 2
Channel: Stories of the Puerto Rican Diaspora
Date: 2021-12-02

FOREIGN IN A DOMESTIC SENSE 1900-1920
DURATION 40 MINUTES
This chapter explains the diverse approaches that the United States Congress adopted in regards to the political and legal situation of the territories acquired as a results of the Spanish-American War. Because Article 9 of the Treaty of Paris established that the situation of the inhabitants of the acquired territories will be determined by Congress, this chapter presents the congressional deliberations regarding the type of citizenship of the inhabitants of the territories. For Puerto Rico, the Congress approved the Foraker Law in 1900 that provided the creation of a political and juridical figure called the "People of Puerto Rico." It recognized the Puerto Rican citizenship, and extended the colonial status under the protection of the United States, but this citizenship wasn’t internationally recognized, explained the constitutional experts in their interviews. They also discuss how Isabel González, looking for a better future, migrated to New York and on her arrival, was treated as a foreign citizen. She then filed a law suit against the United States Government in a case known as Isabella Gonzales, Appellant, vs. William Williams, United States Commissioner of Immigration at the Port of New York No.225, becoming one of the crucial Insular Cases. Historians and jurists discuss how those Insular Cases questioned whether or not the inhabitants of the recently acquired territories (Hawaii, the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico), would have the same rights as the United States citizens in the federate states. The Insular Cases established that the territories and their citizens would only have full rights and be completely protected by the Constitution, if Congress were to incorporate, making them an integrate part of the nation; and so concluded with the famous dictum, “Puerto Rico belongs to, but is not part of the United States”.

The settlement of cigar and tobacco factories in Tampa, Cayo Hueso, but mostly, in New York and Philadelphia, attracted a group of skilled Puerto Rican workers that had been facing difficulty in the tobacco industry in Puerto Rico. That is the case of Bernardo Vega, Jesús Colón, his brother Joaquín Colón, and Luisa Capetillo, amongst others. Also in the context of the First World War, several historians presented various motives to the reasons Congress granted the people of Puerto Rico US citizenship, with what is known as the Jones Act of 1917 –although the Jones Act was for all the territories, it was not implemented equally. The migratory transit increased and significant Puerto Rican settlements were established, especially in New York. Puerto Ricans established their own organizations and clubs’ and also participated in the United States political arena. At the same time, a growing number of immigrants were going to the countryside and other cities such as Philadelphia, New Jersey and Connecticut to work in agriculture, and textile and service industries..