U.S. Congress and the invisibility of coloniality: The case of Puerto Rico's political status revisited

By establishing the dangerous limitations of postcolonial theory, this essay explores the invisibility of Puerto Rico′s colonial status. Mainly, it argues that postcolonial theory has enabled U.S. Congress to keep Puerto Rico as a territory. Using selected quotes from the last three Congressional Hearings on the status of the island, this paper illustrates two basic patterns by which this is done: by employing rhetoric of a caring and compassionate democracy and by employing a tied hands and loose mouths approach. The paper concludes that in order to decolonize a territory like Puerto Rico, modifying a political status alone is not enough if other colonial aspects remain in place