Speaker 1: Media.
Speaker 2: Hi, James, you know, talking with you goes by it
Speaker 2: really quickly. It's almost like no time has passed since
Speaker 2: we last recorded, but it's actually been a whole week.
Speaker 2: Crazy how time flies. Yeah, that's sad. It's the magic
Speaker 2: of pocasts yep. In the last episode, we left off
Speaker 2: by talking about how the US took over the Guano
Speaker 2: Islands and how it established US expansion as a mission
Speaker 2: of resource extraction. The Guano Islands were uninhabited, but this
Speaker 2: episode is all about how the US overseas expansion took
Speaker 2: over people as well as land. So to talk about
Speaker 2: the five inhabited US colonies, we need to talk about
Speaker 2: the Spanish Empire. Throughout the nineteenth century, Spain's expansive empire
Speaker 2: shrunk considerably. Several of their colonies were either overtaken by
Speaker 2: the US, as in the case of Florida, or became independent,
Speaker 2: as in the case of Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and others.
Speaker 2: By the end of the nineteenth century, the Spanish Empire
Speaker 2: was on its last legs, but it did have a
Speaker 2: few remaining colonies Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Cuba,
Speaker 2: the Philippines and to a lesser extent, Puerto Rico had
Speaker 2: been fighting insurrectionary wars against Spain for years by the
Speaker 2: time that eighteen ninety eight rolled around. In a final
Speaker 2: bid to keep some type of control over them, Spain
Speaker 2: gave Cuba and Puerto Rico autonomy, meaning that they could
Speaker 2: form a local government. Meanwhile, Spain entered into a truce
Speaker 2: with the Philippines with promises of future reforms. However, their
Speaker 2: insurgencies essentially continued. This wouldn't last long because the US
Speaker 2: government invaded the Spanish colonies a few months later as
Speaker 2: part of the Spanish American War. As I've talked about,
Speaker 2: the end of the nineteenth century was marked by the
Speaker 2: wish to expat and America's influence beyond its continental borders.
Speaker 2: It had partially done this with the purchase of Alaska,
Speaker 2: as well as the coming annexation of Hawaii, which would
Speaker 2: happen in great part because the US needed a military
Speaker 2: outpost in the Mid Pacific to support operations in the
Speaker 2: Philippines and Guam. However, it still wanted more, and Spain's
Speaker 2: weakness presented the perfect opportunity. So throughout the years before
Speaker 2: eighteen ninety eight, the government had been talking about intervening
Speaker 2: in Cubas struggle for independence. This was done for yellow journalism,
Speaker 2: which we talked about a little bit in the last episode.
Speaker 2: But essentially the newspapers were talking kind of directly to
Speaker 2: the United States government, being like, we need to spread
Speaker 2: liberty to them and freedom, we need to teach them
Speaker 2: how it goes. And this was of course mixed with
Speaker 2: manifest destiny and the Monroe Doctrine where they wanted to
Speaker 2: quote unquote protect American hedgemony in the new World.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to remember who said this uplift civilized and
Speaker 3: christianized our little brown brothers.
Speaker 2: Was it McKinley.
Speaker 3: It seems like it would be. But when I searched
Speaker 3: that specific thing in quotation marks, I don't.
Speaker 2: Oh wait, So William Howard Taft, the first American Governor
Speaker 2: General of the Philippines and later US President, used the
Speaker 2: phrase quote little brown brother in cables to McKinley, So
Speaker 2: maybe it was there.
Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, I think I may have, like combined to
Speaker 3: quotations the paternalist racism there is fantastic. I'll drop it
Speaker 3: in later when we're talking to somebody else. I was
Speaker 3: trivit's Cuba, of which country they were referring.
Speaker 2: To, I'm in based on how Puck rhythm, we could
Speaker 2: all be the Little Brown Brothers, right, yeah.
Speaker 3: That is the stereodote.
Speaker 2: They're getting cool, absolutely so. Speaking of protecting US business
Speaker 2: interests overseas, in January eighteen ninety eight, the United States
Speaker 2: sent a warship, the USS Main, to Havannah Harbor, to
Speaker 2: safeguard American business interests there as well as US citizens. However,
Speaker 2: the USS Main sank about a month later, and while
Speaker 2: the cause was likely an internal fire according to recent experts,
Speaker 2: the contemporary opinion in the United States blamed it all
Speaker 2: on Spain. Right, there was this smattering of yellow journalism
Speaker 2: that was like, you know, they did it. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: the Spain did it to us, even though they didn't
Speaker 2: really have a way to prove that, especially not in
Speaker 2: eighteen ninety eight.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And like the whole like going to the
Speaker 3: bottom of the ocean to look at the USS Main,
Speaker 3: it's a thing like there there have been a series of,
Speaker 3: like I guess underwater archaeology is what it is, expeditions
Speaker 3: to ascertain exactly which duration it blew out, and like, yeah,
Speaker 3: the various ones have had various conclusions. I think you
Speaker 3: rightly phrase it here. It doesn't matter what caused the explosion.
Speaker 3: It became a fact absolutely the Yellow Press, that the Spanish.
Speaker 2: Did absolutely, And I think it's really interesting that there's
Speaker 2: still and I understand that that why you want to
Speaker 2: like have a genuine conclusion, But the fact that it's
Speaker 2: still being litigated more than what is it like one
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty eight, one hundred forty years after a
Speaker 2: little bit more, a little bit lesser, a little bit more,
Speaker 2: is still, you know, kind of this conception of American
Speaker 2: nation building where it couldn't be that the press got
Speaker 2: it wrong, that the government got it wrong, and that
Speaker 2: it became a fact in the media. And that's why
Speaker 2: the US invaded Cuba and other Spanish colonies, right that
Speaker 2: the US kind of has to prove itself innocent in
Speaker 2: this regard, so per how to hide an empire? The
Speaker 2: US government and the US media wanted to intervene, but
Speaker 2: anti impeerless in Congress, imagine that didn't want Cuba to
Speaker 2: be annexed to the United States, so to ostensibly show
Speaker 2: that they didn't have colonial ambitions, Congress passed the Teller
Speaker 2: Amendment that stated that they would not annex Cuba. However,
Speaker 2: Congress said nothing of Spain's other colonies. I should also
Speaker 2: say that before the US officially entered the war that year,
Speaker 2: Teddy Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, had sent
Speaker 2: ships to essentially surround all of the colonies, not just Cuba. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so they were kind of pretty clearly preparing for something,
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the US went to war in eighteen ninety eight,
Speaker 2: and it won pretty handily in large part. And this
Speaker 2: is the stuff that a lot of American history books
Speaker 2: won't tell you because of the help of the independence
Speaker 2: movements that had already been fighting in these colonies for decades. However,
Speaker 2: the US did as the US does and essentially discarded
Speaker 2: these independence movements ambitions once they had helped the US
Speaker 2: win the war, showing once again that allies are not
Speaker 2: necessarily friends. I feel like this is a recurrency, a
Speaker 2: lesson that has to be taught and learned throughout American.
Speaker 3: History, right, you know, yeah, many, many, many such cases.
Speaker 2: Yep. In my opinion, nowhere is this more evident than
Speaker 2: in the Philippines, where the Liberation movement declared independence from
Speaker 2: Spain in June of eighteen ninety eight, yet it went
Speaker 2: unrecognized by the US. Instead, the US choreographed a mock
Speaker 2: battle with Spain that eventually led to them handing over
Speaker 2: their colony to the US per how to hide an empire.
Speaker 2: The Americans lack of recognition for the Filipino independence movement
Speaker 2: would eventually lead to the Philippine American War, where the
Speaker 2: US trampled and devastated the Filipino insurgency that wanted independence
Speaker 2: from one conqueror Spain originally and their newest conqueror, the
Speaker 2: United States. Yeah, you know, ostensibly they came in to
Speaker 2: help these people and then essentially massacred them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, little vexiological aside. The star and triangle device that
Speaker 3: you see on like loads of flags has its like
Speaker 3: birth in this period. I believe it begins with Marti
Speaker 3: and the Cuban independence movement. Obviously, like it characterizes many
Speaker 3: of these states in their independence movement. But for a
Speaker 3: while they're like that flag was like the symbol of
Speaker 3: fighting against imperial conquest. That's why they incorporated it into
Speaker 3: the Catalan flag, the independence cena that has the triangle,
Speaker 3: and then the Catalonia just as a thing without any
Speaker 3: particular political ambition doesn't have the triangle and the star,
Speaker 3: and then you have the red triangle for like socialistic, dependentist,
Speaker 3: but like this blue triangle in flags, like it just
Speaker 3: shows how these actions that reverberated around the world. Right,
Speaker 3: Like Spain had been the empire. Yeah, and they had
Speaker 3: this in Spanish this week we call it the Anosauriblis
Speaker 3: of eighteen ninety eight, right, like the complete collapse of
Speaker 3: Spain's external possessions, and like for a while there people
Speaker 3: are like, huh, yeah, empires can fall, we can defeat them.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately a new one took its place.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, empires can fall of the new empire slides
Speaker 3: in there and like gues helps with the fighting, it
Speaker 3: doesn't do all like you said, like these people have
Speaker 3: been fighting, Like Martie was dead by the time Maricevelt arrived,
Speaker 3: but he had already begun the independence movement.
Speaker 2: And actually, now that you mentioned that about the triangle,
Speaker 2: I didn't include it in this script, right, But the
Speaker 2: Puerto Rican flag is actually directly based on the Cuban
Speaker 2: flag as well. It was made in eighteen ninety five,
Speaker 2: I believe by Puerto Rican exiles in New York who
Speaker 2: were fighting for independence from Spain, and so they essentially
Speaker 2: adopted this Cuban design but inverted the colors to show
Speaker 2: kind of Caribbean solidarity and brotherhood. Yeah, and you know
Speaker 2: it's been our flag ever since, right, And yeah, there's
Speaker 2: a there's a thing about the Puerto Rican flag that
Speaker 2: I'm not going to get into too much, but like,
Speaker 2: based on the kind of col of the blue in
Speaker 2: the flag, is the political status that you support? Right?
Speaker 2: That's kind of a myth, kind of a myth that
Speaker 2: it has essentially become the fact, right right now.
Speaker 3: I love a little hidden flag shit, like the the
Speaker 3: Flounderians with their flag, Like if the lion has claws
Speaker 3: or not, it denotes sarahs on independence. I think it
Speaker 3: doesn't matter if that's what it was designed for. Again,
Speaker 3: it becomes true because everyone knows it to be true
Speaker 3: and they're using it to signal that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. In Puerto Rico, the light blue
Speaker 2: is kind of the independence flag. That the medium blue,
Speaker 2: which is kind of the one that most often is
Speaker 2: used depending on the place, is kind of the status
Speaker 2: quo sometimes independence. And then the darker blue, somewhat of
Speaker 2: the dark blue used in the US flag. Is the
Speaker 2: one that stands for statehood.
Speaker 3: That's cool.
Speaker 2: You shouldn't necessarily take this as fact, because you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes it's hard for people to get their hands on
Speaker 2: a specific color blue Puerto Rican flag, but you can
Speaker 2: usually tell based on the flag that they're waving around
Speaker 2: what they support.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also, actually, speaking of flags, that the flag of the
Speaker 2: Northern Mariana Islands, it goes hard. Have you seen it? No,
Speaker 2: I haven't.
Speaker 3: The Marshal Linds flags, fucking thig. Yes, I'm actually looking
Speaker 3: at it right now. The marsh leis football shit.
Speaker 2: Let me send the epickero reques.
Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, that's a sick one. Yeaheah. Wow.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of very cool flag designs that I
Speaker 2: witnessed while writing this script.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, No, yeah, that one's great.
Speaker 2: So, speaking about the Philippine American War and the American
Speaker 2: occupation of the Philippines post eighteen ninety eight, quoting from
Speaker 2: Colonial Crucible, the four years of counter guerrilla warfare that
Speaker 2: followed would make accurate intelligence and imperative forcing a marked
Speaker 2: expansion of the military's limited capacities, particularly in the area
Speaker 2: of operational field intelligence. During the campaign in Manila, the
Speaker 2: US Army quote created a modern metropolitan police force that
Speaker 2: applied military intelligence and data management to the problem of
Speaker 2: political espionage, developing covert techniques of surveillance and penetration to
Speaker 2: fight a dirty war in the city's slums and back
Speaker 2: alleys end quote. And according to How to Hide an Empire,
Speaker 2: American gis tortured Filipino guerrillas by administering the quote unquote
Speaker 2: water cure, a torture method similar to the waterboarding which
Speaker 2: has happened in Vietnam and Afghanistan, right, and.
Speaker 3: In Cuba in the little US base, So we have
Speaker 3: that as well, right, And you kind of see this
Speaker 3: as part of the imperial feedback or the imperial boomerang
Speaker 3: the colonization of the US's colonies has sent back into
Speaker 3: the United States and how it's reverberated in future imperialist
Speaker 3: or colonialist conquest.
Speaker 2: Right, This one torture method, which is like very similar
Speaker 2: actually to waterboarding, has reverberated throughout American counterinsurgency history. So
Speaker 2: here you can see how the management of empire has
Speaker 2: instructed the US's military apparatus in quelling nationalist movements the
Speaker 2: world over. And this is obviously something that's come back
Speaker 2: towards the American metropol particularly the kind of counterinsurgency used
Speaker 2: in policing American military occupations. Right, This is very common
Speaker 2: because quoting from Colonial crucible quote, colonial regimes only had
Speaker 2: finite resources for costly social controls and generally shows to
Speaker 2: apply them to policing prisons, in law enforcement, and kind
Speaker 2: of the colonial of policing apparatus has reverberated throughout every
Speaker 2: single empire's history.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking of Smedley Butler taking the policing techniques he
Speaker 2: learned in Haiti back to Philadelphia with him the Filipino police,
Speaker 2: kind of setting the scene for some of the policing
Speaker 2: that would happen in the United States. This is like
Speaker 2: very much a thing that happens the world over. Or God,
Speaker 2: why am I blanking George orwell in India the policing
Speaker 2: that he did and Burma sorry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which was part of India at the time in
Speaker 3: the British conception.
Speaker 2: So or well, being a policeman there and kind of
Speaker 2: seeing how it impacted back home. And we see this
Speaker 2: the world over, right, in terms of militarization that the
Speaker 2: military exports that the US has taken to many, many,
Speaker 2: many countries the world over, is not reverberating back into
Speaker 2: US streets. Yeah, and actually, in terms of ice and
Speaker 2: the kind of paramilitary campaign of terror that they're doing,
Speaker 2: we're seeing the people that the US displaced in other
Speaker 2: places kind of fleeing there, trying to get a safe
Speaker 2: haven in the US. And the paramilitary tactics that were
Speaker 2: used against their parents, grandparents, were great grandparents now being
Speaker 2: used on them, right, so that the cycle of abuse
Speaker 2: and violence doesn't really and said, yeah, so you know what,
Speaker 2: won't invest resources in policing, prisons, in law enforcement these advertisers.
Speaker 3: We can't say that for sure. It might be the
Speaker 3: Washington State Highway Patrol again.
Speaker 2: And we're back. Meanwhile, in Cuba, as I mentioned previously,
Speaker 2: anti imperilests in Congress passed the law that met the
Speaker 2: US could annex it. However, that didn't mean there couldn't
Speaker 2: be a military occupation, which lasted until nineteen oh two
Speaker 2: when Cuba declared independence. However, the Plant Amendment stipulated that
Speaker 2: the US could intervene in Cuban affairs, even invade if
Speaker 2: they wanted to. It also meant that the US could
Speaker 2: establish a permanent naval base there, which is now and
Speaker 2: then called Guantanamo Bay. Very Actually, that might be the
Speaker 2: one piece of like American overseas empire that I think
Speaker 2: is very present in the American consciousness. Right, It's much
Speaker 2: more so than like Puerto Rico or Guam or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the fact that it's like a cut out from
Speaker 3: Cuba to this country, that like the whole thing of
Speaker 3: this half of the Trump administration is hating Cuba and
Speaker 3: be like, oh psych, we also own a little bit
Speaker 3: of that island.
Speaker 2: Right exactly, and own it like for more than a
Speaker 2: century at this point as kind of a bastion of
Speaker 2: continued control on it, right, because they couldn't annex it completely.
Speaker 2: But if you just take a little small piece of
Speaker 2: it and then use it for a lot of evil things,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, to your point about it affecting the metropolitic, so
Speaker 3: much of the worst parts of US history run through
Speaker 3: that little naval enclave there, absolutely, like the worst parts
Speaker 3: of the War on Terror. We're now using it for
Speaker 3: a deportation camp, right, like it's where we do our
Speaker 3: deniable crimes.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, that actually ties very much into a thing
Speaker 2: that I'll give a little preview on which is why
Speaker 2: the US Constitution does it really apply in the colonies.
Speaker 2: So the US would go on to occupy Cuba two
Speaker 2: more times from nineteen oh six to nineteen oh nine,
Speaker 2: and once more from nineteen seventeen to nineteen twenty two.
Speaker 2: Even after the US occupation ended, the US would go
Speaker 2: on to have a very good relationship with the Batista
Speaker 2: dictatorship because of American business interest in the Cuban archipelago. However,
Speaker 2: the Cuban Revolution of nineteen fifty three would eventually mark
Speaker 2: the end of this relationship, with the US oscillating between
Speaker 2: wanting to outright take over or destroy Cuba again as
Speaker 2: the current TRP administration wants to do, or to just
Speaker 2: being kind of very critically wary of the government. Right,
Speaker 2: there was a point in recent American history where tensions
Speaker 2: between the two countries, and I say tensions, but it's
Speaker 2: really an extremely lopsided kind of hate from the US's part.
Speaker 2: There was a time in recent memory where tensions were
Speaker 2: kind of mellowing out. Then you could visit Cuba without
Speaker 2: there being a major international incident. Under Obama, and similar
Speaker 2: to the Philippines, Cuba became an important part of how
Speaker 2: the US would portray itself overseas. There were several things
Speaker 2: that happened in Cuba and have happened in Cuba that
Speaker 2: have defined the colonial empire right like Guantanamo Bay, but
Speaker 2: this time, I don't want it to be something so
Speaker 2: dark so per colonial crucible. American forces occupying Cuba worked
Speaker 2: ceaselessly to control the dreaded yellow fever in Havana and
Speaker 2: the rest of the island. But like the public health
Speaker 2: campaigns of other colonial powers, these efforts were not an
Speaker 2: expression of medical beneficience. As elsewhere, public health in Cuba
Speaker 2: served the needs of the colonizer rather than the colonized,
Speaker 2: to protect commerce, maintain the labor force, safeguard troops and
Speaker 2: colonial administrations, and justify colonial rule. The eratica of yellow
Speaker 2: fever in Cuba, an unprecedented success of colonial public health
Speaker 2: achieved for the United States nearly all of these goals.
Speaker 2: American public health efforts in Cuba were a colonial enterprise
Speaker 2: that provided economic and political benefits to important supporters of
Speaker 2: the American imperial state. Demonstrated that American imperialism could succeed
Speaker 2: where European powers had failed, and so inspired further American
Speaker 2: colonial expansion in the region. So here you can kind
Speaker 2: of see how even if the US is doing something
Speaker 2: patently good like eliminated yellow fever in the Cuban archipelago,
Speaker 2: it's still because they want to further control Cuba and
Speaker 2: its neighboring islands.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, a similar hookworm eradication campaign took place in Puerto Rico,
Speaker 2: which remains a US colony to this day. This hookworm
Speaker 2: eradication campaign would go on to inform a similar campaign
Speaker 2: throughout the American South. However, as noted by how to
Speaker 2: Hide an Empire, the Southern campaign largely succeeded in part
Speaker 2: because of a million dollar philanthropic donation from John D. Rockefeller. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: a victim of colonial neglect, the Puerto Rico project received
Speaker 2: only five thousand dollars, and no matter how many hookworm
Speaker 2: pills Puerto Ricans took, they became reinfected again and again
Speaker 2: because the government did not care to uplift them from poverty,
Speaker 2: which would have significantly reduced hookworm rates. In comparison, the
Speaker 2: US South essentially received this mega donation which helped them
Speaker 2: uplift them as well as like investing in like school
Speaker 2: and several other programs that made it, so this hookworm
Speaker 2: infection wasn't so disastrous for the region. However, Puerto Rico
Speaker 2: being a colony, they were like, you know, we don't
Speaker 2: need to do as much. So here we see how
Speaker 2: colonial health campaigns can be used to benefit the metropol
Speaker 2: at the expense of the colonies. Yes, Cubans and Puerto
Speaker 2: Ricans got help for their illnesses, but in one case
Speaker 2: it was used to justify further colonization, and in the
Speaker 2: other they were used essentially as guinea pigs to help
Speaker 2: white people of the American South. Puerto Rico was under
Speaker 2: military rule from eighteen ninety eight to nineteen hundreds and
Speaker 2: was eventually placed under civil administration in nineteen hundred. Under
Speaker 2: the Forker Act. Puerto Ricans would become American citizens seventeen
Speaker 2: years later, just as the US was entering World War One.
Speaker 2: It's commonly stated as a myth that we were made
Speaker 2: citizens exclusively to become soldiers, and this is like half right.
Speaker 2: The thinking by the US government was a citizenship would
Speaker 2: convince Puerto Ricans to fight any foreign aggressors that could
Speaker 2: possibly attack the archipelago, as well as help the US
Speaker 2: military project military force into the Caribbean. I should say
Speaker 2: that this is according to the book Soldiers of the
Speaker 2: Nation by Hedi Frankierrierra. And actually Puerto Rico is called
Speaker 2: the Gibraltar of the Caribbean in World War II because
Speaker 2: of its coastal defenses, got it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: However, it wouldn't be until nineteen forty nine that we
Speaker 2: were able to choose our own governor and we became
Speaker 2: quote estalla livrasociello or commonwealth in nineteen fifty two. I'm
Speaker 2: going to spare the political conjecture. Truthfully, estallo liver ras
Speaker 2: socielo is kind of a nonsense statement. It's essentially just
Speaker 2: colony with a fancier name, right, right, There is not
Speaker 2: really any difference between Puerto Rico and Guam in this sense, right,
Speaker 2: Puerto Rico is a commonwealth, same as the Northern Mariana
Speaker 2: Islands actually, but there is really no difference legally from
Speaker 2: other colonies by being called an estalla liv rasocielo.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And speaking of political repression by the US government, the
Speaker 2: Puerto Rican independence movement has waxed and waned over the years.
Speaker 2: All the while the movement has faced pretty brutal political
Speaker 2: repression throughout all that time, including being bombed by the
Speaker 2: Air Force during the nineteen fifty Hadyuya Uprising, one of
Speaker 2: the few times that the US has bod its own citizens,
Speaker 2: as well as the longest domestic surveillance program in US
Speaker 2: history that spanned roughly six decades and track somewhere over
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand people according to the book Las Carbetas
Speaker 2: by Tamon Bocqueberees and Jose Jrier col Morrera. Here, like
Speaker 2: the Philippines, we see how the US's imperial quelling of
Speaker 2: nationalist movements would go on to boomerang back to the metropol.
Speaker 2: Las Carpetas as the program is colloquially known, preceded co
Speaker 2: intel Pro and its DNA can be found throughout the
Speaker 2: domestic surveillance programs that we know of and surely those
Speaker 2: that we don't. And I want to stop here to
Speaker 2: speak a little of the Puerto Rican status debate, because
Speaker 2: I've seen a lot of people who don't know anything
Speaker 2: about it acting like experts on Twitter dot com.
Speaker 3: Over the years shocking.
Speaker 2: Puerto Rico has performed several referendums over the decades where
Speaker 2: you vote on the status, and over the last decade,
Speaker 2: a state has won three of them. Truth be told,
Speaker 2: these referendums don't actually mean that much in terms of
Speaker 2: measuring public support because they've been boycotted and many people
Speaker 2: view them in the same way that they would a
Speaker 2: public poll. Also, it's non binding, which means even if
Speaker 2: whatever option wins, nothing's going to happen. Congress is the
Speaker 2: only one that could approve statehood for Puerto Rico, no
Speaker 2: matter how much Puerto Ricans ask for it. Even so,
Speaker 2: in the last referendum, during the twenty twenty four election,
Speaker 2: some form of independence meaning either full independence or compact
Speaker 2: or free association, received forty one percent support, while statehood
Speaker 2: received fifty nine percent. So while statehood is ostensibly the
Speaker 2: majority choice, it's not as clear cut as many people
Speaker 2: would want you to believe. There's also the fact that
Speaker 2: the government has inculcated a sense of if you don't
Speaker 2: vote for statehood, federal funds will be taken away from
Speaker 2: Puerto Rico. And in a colony where about forty six
Speaker 2: percent of the public budget is federal funds and nearly
Speaker 2: half of the people fall below the poverty line, that's
Speaker 2: a very very powerful boogeyman. Yeah, and now I'm sorry
Speaker 2: to say that. I'm going to summarize a lot of
Speaker 2: the history of Guam, American Samoa, the US Virgin Islands,
Speaker 2: and the Northern Mariana Islands to get to how the
Speaker 2: Constitution doesn't fully apply there, but I still want people
Speaker 2: to know some of the basic facts about the other colonies.
Speaker 2: Guam was under military rule for forty seven years, first
Speaker 2: by the US, then Japan for four years during World
Speaker 2: War Two, and again by the US until nineteen fifty,
Speaker 2: when Truman signed the Organic Act of Guam, giving them
Speaker 2: a civilian administration in a civilian court. Meanwhile, the US
Speaker 2: American Samoa in nineteen hundred when local chiefs seeded Tutuila,
Speaker 2: the largest island, to the US. This was followed by
Speaker 2: Manua in nineteen oh four and Swain's Island in nineteen
Speaker 2: oh five, although it's also claimed by Tokelau, a colony
Speaker 2: of New Zealand. As I said during the last episode,
Speaker 2: American Samoans are non citizen nationals and they have to
Speaker 2: naturalize if they want to become American citizens. Per the ACLU,
Speaker 2: being a non citizen national means that they can't be firefighters, paramedics,
Speaker 2: and public school teachers. The US Virgin Islands were bought
Speaker 2: from Denmark for twenty five million in nineteen seventeen. The
Speaker 2: US had been negotiating this in one way or another
Speaker 2: since eighteen sixty five, and like Puerto Rico, USVII is
Speaker 2: an important strategic foothold in the Caribbean for military purposes. Finally,
Speaker 2: the Northern Mariana Islands have oscillated rulers between several empires. However,
Speaker 2: after World War II they became United Nations Trust territories
Speaker 2: under American administration. It became a colony of the US
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty six. The Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau
Speaker 2: were also part of this Trust, but they chose to
Speaker 2: enter into compacts of free association instead of becoming colonies.
Speaker 2: There is a common trait among all of these colonies
Speaker 2: that I've mentioned for that which is being key to
Speaker 2: military force projection by the United States in the Caribbean
Speaker 2: and the Pacific. Bases in each of these colonies are
Speaker 2: crucial to the military's logistical ability to deploy throughout the world. Recently,
Speaker 2: a long dormant naval base in Puerto Rico Roosevelt Roads,
Speaker 2: was brought back to life as part of the Trump
Speaker 2: administration's attacks on Venezuela and the boat strikes throughout the
Speaker 2: Caribbean as well as including the Pacific. The planes that
Speaker 2: are doing the boat strikes aren't leaving from Puerto Rico
Speaker 2: to do in the Pacific. Obviously, another common trait that
Speaker 2: all of these colonies share is that stuff is super expensive,
Speaker 2: in part because of the Jones Act, a nineteen twenty
Speaker 2: shipping law that mandates that any goods traveling between two
Speaker 2: US ports has to move on a US flagged, owned
Speaker 2: and crude ship. People might be most familiar with this
Speaker 2: law based on the amount of times as sitting US
Speaker 2: president has put it on pause. In fact, Trump extended
Speaker 2: the Jones Act waiver for another ninety days just a
Speaker 2: few days ago to assuage pressures from oil price increases.
Speaker 2: A twenty twenty four working paper by two Purdue University
Speaker 2: economists with backing of the World Bank that the Jones
Speaker 2: Act imposes an annual welfare burden on Puerto Rico of
Speaker 2: one point or billion dollars because foreign flag commerce ships
Speaker 2: can't stop in Puerto Rico then go onto Florida, for example,
Speaker 2: they have to go to Florida first, have all this
Speaker 2: stuff moved onto a US flag ship, then it comes
Speaker 2: here and all of this cost is passed on to
Speaker 2: the consumer. The Jones Act also affects Hawaii and Alaska.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think people who have not experienced this will
Speaker 3: not realize the profound nature to which this and just
Speaker 3: being so far from the colonial core impacts everyday life.
Speaker 3: Like the way you eat is fundamentally determined by the
Speaker 3: fact that this shit is so expensive. I know, like
Speaker 3: this gets particularly the case in you know, the interior
Speaker 3: of Alaska, where just getting there is in and of
Speaker 3: itself expensive. But this has a big role to play.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Actually this is in the scrip, but in terms
Speaker 2: of Puerto Rico, part of the American industrialization of the archipelago,
Speaker 2: as well as the kind of the way that it
Speaker 2: was backed up by the local government, meant that we
Speaker 2: switched from a kind of agricultural society to an industrial one,
Speaker 2: and we went from growing a ton of our own
Speaker 2: food to only growing about between ten to twenty percent
Speaker 2: of it, which back then was like very good because
Speaker 2: there was a boom time for the Puerto Rican economy,
Speaker 2: but kind of now it means that everything is incredibly
Speaker 2: expensive because it has to come from all over the world,
Speaker 2: get moved onto a US flagship in the contiguous forty
Speaker 2: eight states, then come back here. Right.
Speaker 3: It places you not only like at a place where
Speaker 3: you're like already paying more, but also the whim of
Speaker 3: shipping costs, oil prices, right, these things that we're all
Speaker 3: seeing and go up right now.
Speaker 2: Absolutely part of those costs have been assuaged recently because
Speaker 2: of the waivers, But there is a very big contingent
Speaker 2: of people in Puerto Rico who are really dreading the
Speaker 2: moment those waivers stop because things are going to get
Speaker 2: really expensive again. And they're still expensive, but they're going
Speaker 2: to get even more expensive, right, yeah, yeah, So at
Speaker 2: this point, if you've been listening closely, you'll notice that
Speaker 2: there's a pretty glaring emission in what I've covered so far.
Speaker 2: Alaska and Hawaii, he only oversees US territories to become states,
Speaker 2: have gone almost completely unmentioned. I purposefully left them out
Speaker 2: because they overcomplicated the whole history, and it was easier
Speaker 2: to put them at the end than in the middle.
Speaker 2: So Alaska was bought from Imperial Russia in eighteen fifty
Speaker 2: six for seven point two million, and Hawaii was annexed
Speaker 2: in eighteen ninety eight after US businessmen and marines did
Speaker 2: a bloodless cue against the Kingdom of Hawaii and it's
Speaker 2: then queen. They eventually became the forty ninth and fifty
Speaker 2: estate in the middle of the twentieth century, and the
Speaker 2: kind of annexation of Alaska and Hawaii is the thread
Speaker 2: that's been running throughout these two podcast episodes right in
Speaker 2: terms of Alaska its resource extraction. By buying Alaska, they
Speaker 2: got access to miles and miles of pristine nature that
Speaker 2: had in it gold, fur and oil. In Hawaii, they
Speaker 2: received a strategic foothold in the Pacific, which has become
Speaker 2: extremely important over the years, particularly at the time that
Speaker 2: it was annexed during the Spanish American War, where the
Speaker 2: US military had to use it as a launch pad
Speaker 2: essentially for its war in the Philippines and Guam. According
Speaker 2: to How to Hide an Empire and an article in
Speaker 2: The Conversation titled Why Russia gave up Alaska, America's gateway
Speaker 2: to the Arctic by William L. E. Yagruhinsley, the purchase
Speaker 2: of Alaska brought with it a cornucopia of natural resources,
Speaker 2: including gold, fur, and oil. That could be mined from
Speaker 2: this new territory, as well as nearly four hundred million
Speaker 2: pristine acres of New Land, with a comparably small addition
Speaker 2: to the US's majority white racial calculus. And this is
Speaker 2: a very important thing. The United States has never really
Speaker 2: added territories at this point that would significantly for off
Speaker 2: the amount of white Anglo Saxon people that inherit it. Right,
Speaker 2: And I'm thinking of choosing to incorporate Oklahoma instead of
Speaker 2: the indigenous state of Sequoia because of how it would
Speaker 2: affect the amount of white people in the United States.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the way that it would affect the representation
Speaker 3: in Congress too, right, like specifically partitioning states off in
Speaker 3: such a way that they don't tend to give people
Speaker 3: who are not white representation.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. Meanwhile, Hawaii, with a much more multicultural population,
Speaker 2: was a four year issue, but the US decided to
Speaker 2: make them a state anyway because it helped them reach
Speaker 2: Pacific markets and because it provided an important geopolitical strategic
Speaker 2: interest during the Cold War. Hawaii was made into a
Speaker 2: state because of the Spanish American War, but it was annexed,
Speaker 2: not made into a state. A claratory note there right. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm severely flattening history here, but that's the gist of
Speaker 2: how they became states. And dear listener, you might be
Speaker 2: asking what makes them different from Puerto Rico and the
Speaker 2: rest of the colonies. The key difference is that Alaska
Speaker 2: and Hawaii where both quote unquote incorporated territories. Meanwhile, Puerto Rico, Guam,
Speaker 2: the US Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American
Speaker 2: Samoa are quote unquote unincorporated territories. If that distinction means
Speaker 2: nothing to you and it sounds kind of racist, welcome
Speaker 2: to the club. This distinction was created in nineteen oh
Speaker 2: one by a series of racist Supreme Court decisions called
Speaker 2: the Insular Cases. A critical part of the Insular Cases
Speaker 2: created the doctrine of incorporation that governs non contiguous territories,
Speaker 2: as well as created the idea of incorporation versus unincorporation,
Speaker 2: creating the legal framework saying that the Constitution does not
Speaker 2: fully apply to the unincorporated territories. Downsvie Bidwell was the
Speaker 2: most important case here because it created the term unincorporated
Speaker 2: territory to describe Puerto Rico's legal status. Shortly after it
Speaker 2: had been acquired. The case created the distinction that some
Speaker 2: territories were unincorporated and others were incorporated, like Alaska and Hawaii,
Speaker 2: which were integral parts of the US and thus bound
Speaker 2: for statehood. However, unincorporated territories like Puerto Rico and Guam
Speaker 2: were not on that patht statehood, and they were a
Speaker 2: pertinent to the United States. The same word the US
Speaker 2: used for the islands it claimed under the Guano Islands Act.
Speaker 2: We were and this is a quote foreign in a
Speaker 2: domestic sense.
Speaker 3: What an amazing legal fucking term to come up with,
Speaker 3: right yeah, great.
Speaker 2: Had It's like very incredible because all of this is
Speaker 2: like a legal fiction applied right, like literally right yeah.
Speaker 3: It's a bunch of people dancing around saying long words
Speaker 3: to be like definitally not a colony, dude, No, absolutely not,
Speaker 3: no way, like totally different, broke, I don't know what
Speaker 3: you're talking about.
Speaker 2: The US would never have colonies. They are just foreign
Speaker 2: in a domestic sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Another case, the line of e. Bidwell, was decided on
Speaker 2: the exact same day it explained that Puerto Rico belonged
Speaker 2: to the US. I'm simplifying the explanation here, but when
Speaker 2: you mix it with Downs and other cases over the years,
Speaker 2: you get the phrase that we know all too well
Speaker 2: owned but not part of. To drive the point home,
Speaker 2: I want a paraphrase from Amy Kaplan's The Anarchy of Empire.
Speaker 2: The Insular Cases put Puerto Rico and other colonies in
Speaker 2: a liminal space, both inside and outside of the boundaries
Speaker 2: of the Constitution, relegating the people who live there to
Speaker 2: a permanent state of limbo, neither fully citizens nor completely foreign.
Speaker 2: The Insular Cases cemented the imperial mode of governance so
Speaker 2: thoroughly that many Americans would not even consider their home
Speaker 2: country to be an empire. These colonies remain in limbo
Speaker 2: to this day, likely never going to be made states,
Speaker 2: yet equally as likely to never become independent. This ideological
Speaker 2: and legal framework has extended past the colonies, the most
Speaker 2: salient example being Guantanamo Bay, a colonial holdover from US
Speaker 2: occupation in Cuba. Per Kaplan in her essay where is
Speaker 2: Guantanamo Bay? Court decisions built on top of the Insular
Speaker 2: Cases recognize the base as domestic for some purposes and
Speaker 2: foreign for others, thus facilitating the quote global reach of
Speaker 2: US power by creating a shadowy hybrid legal system co
Speaker 2: extensive with the changing needs of empire. Yeah, there have
Speaker 2: been several attempts to overturn the Insular cases, but they
Speaker 2: remain case law. These cases that describe the people of
Speaker 2: Puerto Rico and other US colonies as quote, alien races
Speaker 2: and savage tribes, remain the way that the United States
Speaker 2: views its overseas possess. The last challenge to the Insular
Speaker 2: Cases came in twenty eighteen in a case titled Fittsimano
Speaker 2: versus United States, where free non citizen nationals from American
Speaker 2: Samoa challenged the US government's denial to extend it to
Speaker 2: them birthright citizenship. A Utah Federal District court right not
Speaker 2: an American Samoan court. A Utah Federal District Court declared
Speaker 2: that American Samoans were citizens of the United States and
Speaker 2: deserve birthright citizenship, but the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals
Speaker 2: reversed the decision, citing the Insular cases. And in this
Speaker 2: process there is kind of a very specific othering of
Speaker 2: people of the colonies. Right. You don't get to go
Speaker 2: to your local court and show them, hey, I want
Speaker 2: to be a part of this part of this nation,
Speaker 2: which is what they wanted. Right, you have to go
Speaker 2: to Utah to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals and
Speaker 2: be like, hey, I want you to recognize my constitutional rights.
Speaker 3: That has now got me wondering what circuit they're in, Like,
Speaker 3: do they fall into a federal circuit? No, it doesn't
Speaker 3: have a federal court apparently.
Speaker 2: No, because part of the reason that American Samoa is
Speaker 2: so different from the rest of the colonies, right, is
Speaker 2: that the indigenous population there has kind of wanted to
Speaker 2: keep them separately and right, there's varying opinions on this right,
Speaker 2: which is why we saw that challenge to the insular cases.
Speaker 2: During that challenge, the country or the government of American Samoa,
Speaker 2: they were pro insular cases, being like, hey, we want
Speaker 2: to continue to this to be case law because it
Speaker 2: wouldn't challenge certain laws that they have in the books
Speaker 2: that people with certain amounts of American Samoan ancestry can
Speaker 2: buy land and those without it can't buy land there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, so they didn't want to get equal protection
Speaker 3: or something under the equal protection caused a constitution. They
Speaker 3: felt like it was a net pause do for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, but like obviously this has changed through time,
Speaker 2: I should say, right, because right, Yeah, for some it
Speaker 2: means that they can stop gentrification and further colonization of
Speaker 2: their their island, but it also means that their people
Speaker 2: face significant challenges if they choose to travel outside of
Speaker 2: American Samoa, which based on how the US economy works,
Speaker 2: usually means that a significant portion of that population has
Speaker 2: to leave in order to find employment.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. It's a yeah. I
Speaker 3: think of like how like Marshallese people, they're not US citizens,
Speaker 3: but they can travel to the US without a visa
Speaker 3: and reside and work in the US of visa. But
Speaker 3: like if they join the military, they can join the
Speaker 3: US military. But then if they want to access their
Speaker 3: VA benefits, they have to go to Hawaii, like across
Speaker 3: like a It's a several hour flight, like it's several
Speaker 3: days on a boat. Right, So then like obviously not
Speaker 3: all of the you know, the services that they might
Speaker 3: need medically available on Marjorro, so that they have to
Speaker 3: they have to take that journey just to access to
Speaker 3: benefits that, like in theory, are owed to them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not exactly the same situation here in Puerto Rico,
Speaker 2: but the VA benefits system here is not that great
Speaker 2: compared to the contiguous United States, which in and of
Speaker 2: itself is also not that great from what I've read
Speaker 2: and people have told me, yes, yeah, but there's only
Speaker 2: one hospital here in several clinics. Yeah, so you if
Speaker 2: you live far far away from the hospital, you have
Speaker 2: to travel to that to get vacare. And that that's
Speaker 2: like one of the many, many things where the US
Speaker 2: colonies are forgotten and left by the wayside in terms
Speaker 2: of these these things that the US government should ostensibly
Speaker 2: provide for its citizens and the people under its dominion. Right, Yeah, So,
Speaker 2: the insular cases essentially said that people in the US
Speaker 2: colonies were owned but not part of the United States.
Speaker 2: That meant that we had to be given American citizenship
Speaker 2: if we got it or not the case of American
Speaker 2: Samoa through federal statute. This is different than people born
Speaker 2: in the contiguous United States or Alaska and Hawaii, where
Speaker 2: they get birth right citizenship through the constitution. Because the
Speaker 2: Constitution doesn't fully apply to us, we had to get
Speaker 2: it for a federal statute.
Speaker 3: Ye.
Speaker 2: This means that it would be pretty easy to take
Speaker 2: away birth right citizenship in the colonies compared to taking
Speaker 2: away birth right citizenship throughout the entire US. This is
Speaker 2: something that Virginia Congressman Morgan Griffith wants to do. Griffith
Speaker 2: presented a law to eliminate birth rights citizenship in the
Speaker 2: US colonies, saying that it was the only thing that
Speaker 2: the US could do to protect American citizenship, and because
Speaker 2: our American citizenship is free statute several laws forout history.
Speaker 2: In Puerto Rico's it was in nineteen seventeen then codified
Speaker 2: by the American Nationality Act, he could do it if
Speaker 2: the law passed Congress. In Congress shows to eliminate birthright
Speaker 2: citizenship here, his press release specifically cited the insular cases
Speaker 2: as giving Congress the power to take it away. However,
Speaker 2: to be clear, it's very unlikely that this bill will
Speaker 2: even make it to a vote, much less become law.
Speaker 2: But through this kind of fret to take away birthright citizenship,
Speaker 2: we see how the US still has kind of extremely
Speaker 2: direct control over its colonies. Yeah, you know, as I
Speaker 2: hope I have evidence throughout this episode. The American colonies,
Speaker 2: the current American colonies, not the thirteen colonies right, have
Speaker 2: always been laboratories for the American experiment right in terms
Speaker 2: of surveillance, in terms of military occupation. And here with
Speaker 2: this this bill that again won't even probably won't even
Speaker 2: make it to a vote, we are seeing the Republican
Speaker 2: administration trying to experiment with how they can take away
Speaker 2: birth rights citizenship, which they failed to do through Trump's
Speaker 2: executive order, but they are trying to see how they
Speaker 2: can ram it through to take it away from people.
Speaker 2: And recently we saw Trump sign an executive order to
Speaker 2: do a similar thing to ostensibly address quote unquote BIRF tourism,
Speaker 2: a thing that doesn't really matter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in the grand scheme of things, it's an infintesimally
Speaker 3: small number of people.
Speaker 2: Exactly. The thing that I want to express is that
Speaker 2: the US colonies have always been laboratories of empire. What
Speaker 2: happens here doesn't stay here, And contrary to the way
Speaker 2: that many people think the US and other empire is
Speaker 2: to be clear, doesn't just exert power, ideology, and movements outwards. Instead,
Speaker 2: it is in a continuous feedback with its colonies that
Speaker 2: have shaped what happens in the imperial core the same
Speaker 2: way that it has shaped what happens in the imperial periphery.
Speaker 2: And I want to end this episode by talking about
Speaker 2: how Trump has signaled several times towards US territorial expansion.
Speaker 2: He has made moves or said that he wants to
Speaker 2: annex Canada, Venezuela, Cuba, the Gaza Strip, Mexico, and Greenland,
Speaker 2: among others. And as I mentioned in the last episode,
Speaker 2: he's been obsessed with Greenland for a hot minute, even
Speaker 2: reportedly saying that he wanted to trade it for Puerto Rico,
Speaker 2: which was then ravaged by Hurricane Maria. According to NBC,
Speaker 2: his most recent signal was posting a picture of Venezuela
Speaker 2: with the American flag on it, essentially saying that he
Speaker 2: wants to make it the fifty first state. To be clear,
Speaker 2: there are several other places that he could do that in,
Speaker 2: but he is projecting this idea of the fifty first
Speaker 2: state as a way of kind of colonial capture. Right right.
Speaker 2: By promising to bring liberty and freedom to Venezuelans, he
Speaker 2: is saying we will make you equal, even though he
Speaker 2: has forgotten a bunch of equal rights for four million
Speaker 2: people in the US colonies. And while a lot of
Speaker 2: Trump's rhetoric about territorial expansion of the United States has
Speaker 2: been brushed off as the mad ramblings of a despot
Speaker 2: without any real power to do so. He did genuinely
Speaker 2: kidnap Nicholas Maduro and has kind of made the country
Speaker 2: into a vasal state of the US. Right, Yeah, and
Speaker 2: I learned that this is called a suserain. A souserain
Speaker 2: is a political leader that expresses power over a separate
Speaker 2: sovereign entity.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, with it it in like an informal fashion
Speaker 3: like this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, While the lines aren't quite clear enough right now,
Speaker 2: it's become increasingly evident that the US is exerting more
Speaker 2: than simple influence in Venezuela, making it into a US
Speaker 2: protectorate in all but name. And to be honest, in
Speaker 2: my opinion, the US would never add another state to
Speaker 2: the Union, particularly one that would add twenty eight point
Speaker 2: six million LATINX people to the nation's demographics. However, as
Speaker 2: I hope I have evidence throughout the episode, the American
Speaker 2: Empire has various forms of exerting its colonial influence throughout
Speaker 2: the region and the world. Right, it doesn't necessarily have
Speaker 2: to become a state to become owned by the United States,
Speaker 2: as Puerto Rico, Guam, and several other colonies. Within its
Speaker 2: treatment of its colonies and the insular cases, the US
Speaker 2: has established a separate ideological and legal framework to treat
Speaker 2: those people and peaces of land that it wants to
Speaker 2: own and occupy, but not incorporate Carlos from the future here.
Speaker 2: A couple days after we recorded this episode, Trump announced
Speaker 2: that he already considered the Strait of Horror meus quote
Speaker 2: unquote American territory. This was reported by several news outlets,
Speaker 2: including The Guardian, which is where I read it originally.
Speaker 2: While it seems pretty obvious that the US government has
Speaker 2: no way of actually establish control over the Strait because
Speaker 2: it's on the losing side of the war, the overture
Speaker 2: towards taking it over is an attempt to establish a
Speaker 2: new sphere of US hegemony in the region. Imperialism is
Speaker 2: a business enterprise, and much like the conquest of the
Speaker 2: Guano Islands and the inhabited colonies meant access to new
Speaker 2: resources and military footholds, US control of the Strait, which
Speaker 2: again very unlikely, would be an incredible boon for the
Speaker 2: US economy. The most comparable thing here would be the
Speaker 2: Panama Canal. Control of the canal helped the US become
Speaker 2: a major global power because it controlled shipping in the region.
Speaker 2: The US government likely wants to do something similar with
Speaker 2: the Strait of Horror Moves, a major maritime passage for
Speaker 2: all types of things that make the economy move. While
Speaker 2: the thread against the Strait is the newest and the
Speaker 2: long line of frets Stantic's new territory to the US,
Speaker 2: we should normalize them. Through its colonies in the insular cases,
Speaker 2: as well as decades of colonialism and imperialism, the US
Speaker 2: is built the apparatus to expand its empire to people
Speaker 2: and places beyond its borders. While it's unlikely, we shouldn't
Speaker 2: write it off completely, especially as a Trump administration continues
Speaker 2: to signal that it wants to regain domination over the
Speaker 2: Western hemisphere and other parts of the world.
Speaker 3: If I'd like to read more of your work, where
Speaker 3: can they find you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm at PAKERO to XL on social media. It's
Speaker 2: v a q u e r O two x L.
Speaker 2: I'm a freelancer, so I've written for a bunch of places.
Speaker 2: My most recent work has been a series of short
Speaker 2: documentaries about different immigrant populations in Puerto Rico, the Dominican population,
Speaker 2: the Chinese population, and the Palestinian population. The Palestinian one
Speaker 2: came out a little less than a month ago, and
Speaker 2: that's pretty much where you can find me. Thanks nice
Speaker 2: for accompanying me on this colonial journey, James.
Speaker 3: That's what I do. But yeah, thank you for explaining that.
Speaker 3: I feel like it's really good to have these things
Speaker 3: well wrapped up in a way people can understand, like that.
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