The Legal Construction of Identity

Book excerpt: "The Legal Construction of Identity: The Judicial and Social Legacy, of American Colonialism in Puerto Rico investigates how the relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico has been created and recreated over the past 100 years. More specifically, author Efren Rivera Ramos engages in the lively exploration of how law has contributed to the construction of a particular social reality embodied by the colonial relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico." "Dr. Rivera Ramos argues that legal constructs and norms govern the struggle for the definition of a specific Puerto Rican identity. This struggle includes the tension between claiming rights of U.S. citizenship and participation on the one hand and asserting a separate cultural identity, on the other. In this sense, the law has been a crucial arbiter of self-determination and self-perception as many Puerto Ricans strive to form a distinct national identity. This book will appeal to social scientists and legal scholars interested in the symbiotic relationship between law and society."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved