Suchergebnisse

From 1917 to 1933, the United States kept Puerto Rico in limbo, offering it neither a course toward independence nor much hope for prompt statehood. Clark unfolds with clarity the painful truth of the United States' unsavory attempt at being both a democratic and imperial nation during this period.

AbstractWith the passage of the Jones Act (1917), the United States expanded Puerto Rican autonomy, made Puerto Ricans citizens of the USA, and gave the island prohibition of alcohol. The Puerto Rican people overwhelmingly ratified prohibition in a referendum in July 1917. Prohibition won because it was emotionally linked to patriotism and morality. Prohibition enforcement was almost impossible, compounded by the colonial status of the island. It was that status which brought an immediate end to prohibition in Puerto Rico with the demise of prohibition in the United States in 1933.