Cuba and Puerto Rico in the American Century

Class overview

The US military intervention of Cuba and Puerto Rico during the Cuban war of independence in 1898 increased the political and economic influence of the United States in the two remaining Spanish colonies in the Caribbean. Under Spanish colonialism, Cuba and Puerto Rico shared similar administrative, judicial, political, and religious institutions. They also shared colonial policies and racial ideologies. However, the social and economic development of these two Caribbean islands followed divergent historical pathways. Cuba, with its wide bay in Havana, became one the most critical shipyards of the Spanish fleet up till the 18th century. Also, its fertile lands and access to money and technological resources allowed Cuba to become one of the most lucrative sugar producers of the 19th century. Puerto Rico, on the contrary—albeit some small boom in sugar and coffee cultivation and production during the 19th century—was a military backwater colony which its primary worth was its strategic geographical location in the Caribbean Sea. However, for all the differences outlined above, the people of Cuba and Puerto Rico developed similar cultures and shared common struggles against their former metropolis, political elites, and after the 20th century against the United States.

This course will make an in-deep study of the history of Cuba and Puerto Rico from the 20th century to the present day. It will explore their past socio-economic realities and political struggles under the shadows of the American presence in the region. How can we explain Puerto Rico’s colonial status in the 21st century and Cuba’s celebration of sixty-one years of its socialist revolution? Understandably, we will pay attention to the conflicting political, social, and cultural relations of both islands with the United States during the 20th century. We will explore the effects of the Spanish American War in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the United States. How Cuba and Puerto Rico incorporated into the American imaginary after the Spanish American War of 1898? How were both economies transformed after the intensification of US capital in the sugar industry and the resulting pauperization of significant sectors of Puerto Rican and Cuban societies? How different historical actors, resisted, negotiated, or accommodated their struggles and interests under these new political realities. Under what political and economic conditions Puerto Rico grew economically dependent on the United States? What were the social, economic, and political causes that prompted the Cuban revolution in 1959? What accounts for these divergent historical paths that place these Caribbean islands in diametrically opposite positions vis a vis the United States? The course highlights the social and political history of Cuba and Puerto Rico; nevertheless, it will include in weekly readings on medullar topics about class, race, gender, migration, and popular culture of both societies.

Objectives:

• Understand critical social, political, economic, and cultural processes that shaped twentieth-century Cuban and Puerto Rican history.

• Explain the significance of Cuban and Puerto Rican history from a global perspective. 

• Critically appraise the entanglement of Cuban, Puerto Rican, and American History in the twentieth century.

• Create new knowledge through research about Cuban and Puerto Rican history and historiography.

• Make reasonable inferences from primary sources to transform them into pieces of evidence of a historical argument. 

• Encourage the learning and practice of critical thinking, writing abilities, and small class discussions.