War Against All Puerto Ricans

April 27, 2015
Denis, former editorial director of Spanish-language daily newspaper El Diario, reveals the true face of American imperialism in its own backyard through the history of military occupation, economic exploitation, and weak leadership that led to the October 1950 armed revolt in the Puerto Rican towns of Jayuya and Utuado. He shares the stories of young revolutionaries, federal agents, corrupt governors, and Pedro Albizu Campos, a man born into the lowest social tier who would become the president of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico. Characters such as Waller Booth, an undercover agent for the OSS (the precursor to the CIA) known by locals only as the proprietor of a nameless nightclub, take on weight through Denis's firm grip on narrative and attention to detail. Structurally, however, the book is weakly organized into three parts: Facts, People and Places. Forgoing a straight chronology, the anecdotes of minor and major players are often padded with points that are repeatedly explained. Nonetheless, Denis's meticulous research reveals an often overlooked element of American history and provides context to the current status of Puerto Rico as a U.S. territory. Photos.

February 1, 2015
Scathing examination of American colonial policy in Puerto Rico, culminating in the violent, brief revolution of 1950 and its brutal suppression. Filmmaker, former editorial director of El Diario and New York State Assemblyman Denis seethes at the injustices inflicted on the small island protectorate of Puerto Rico since it was seized from Spain during the Spanish-American War of 1898 and relegated to being a base for President Theodore Roosevelt's "big stick" policy in the Caribbean. According to the prevalent racial policy of the time, Puerto Ricans were considered too ignorant and uncivilized for self-rule. Massive sugar cane-grinding mills run by American corporations would soon dot the tropical landscape, and the impoverished inhabitants were enlisted in the backbreaking labor of cutting and processing the cane for pennies a day. In 1922, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the island a territory, not a state, and thus the U.S. Constitution did not apply, denying the workers any fair labor policies enjoyed by U.S. citizens. A Nationalist Party was formed at the same time, closely followed and infiltrated by the FBI, according to documents the author secured. The Ponce massacre of March 1937-when the police opened fire on unarmed cadets marching through the town square, killing 19 and wounding over 200 people-galvanized unrest and rebellion. In telling this gruesome and little-recorded history, Denis concentrates on the personalities involved: the corrupt governor Luis Munoz Marin; the Harvard-educated Nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos; the documentarian of the Nationalist cause, Juan Emilio Viguie; and the humble barber Vidal Santiago Diaz, whose Salon Boricua became the fulcrum of dissent and political organization. The 1950 rebellion concluded horrifically in violent death or imprisonment at San Juan's notorious La Princesa prison. Denis produces compelling evidence of U.S. government-sponsored radiation and other medical experiments inflicted on prisoners. A pointed, relentless chronicle of a despicable part of past American foreign policy.

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Starred review from April 1, 2015

In searing and well-researched prose, former New York assemblyman and El Diario editorial director Denis covers a much-neglected side of U.S. imperialist and colonial practice in Puerto Rico. From the Spanish-American War in the 1890s to a failed and bloody revolution on the island in 1950, in which the U.S. Army deployed 5,000 troops and bombarded two towns--the only time in history that America has bombed its own citizens--the events chronicled will strike a chord with Puerto Rican and Latin American history students and enthusiasts. Recounting Nationalist hero Pedro Albizu Campos's last tortured days in the filthy, inhumane La Princesa prison and the botched plan to assassinate President Harry Truman at the Blair House in Washington, DC, the author presents decades' worth of interviews, public records, and personal documents. The historical account he adeptly weaves unabashedly reveals the government's racist and often predatory actions toward its Caribbean colony. VERDICT With a decidedly pro-Puerto Rican independence bent, this timely, eye-opening title is as much a must-read as Juan Gonzales's Harvest of Empire.--Shelley Diaz, School Library Journal

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