Review of Puerto Rico: A National History by Jorell Meléndez-Badillo (Princeton University Press, 2024)
The past few months have been historic ones for Puerto Ricans, both within Puerto Rico and in the diaspora. In late October, the often forgotten US colony surfaced in the race for the White House when the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”
This was his attempt at a joke during a Donald Trump rally in New York City, where Puerto Ricans make up a large part of the population. The comment undermined Trump’s efforts to widen his coalition by gaining the support of famous Puerto Ricans like reggaetoneros Anuel AA and Nicky Jam while allowing the Kamala Harris campaign to make empty promises on an issue that it didn’t really care about before the scandal.
A week later, the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) broke through the limits of the island’s two-party system, entrenched for half a century, when its charismatic candidate for governor, Juan Dalmau, placed second with over 30 percent of the vote. Then, on Three Kings Day 2025, Puerto Rican musician Bad Bunny released his politically charged album Debí Tirar Más Fotos, which quickly rose in the charts from Argentina to Austria.
Each of these events is related to how the colonial relationship with the United States has shaped the past and present of the Puerto Rican nation. This relationship is a guiding thread in Jorell Meléndez-Badillo’s Puerto Rico: A National History.
Meléndez-Badillo…
Auteur: Cruz Bonlarron Martínez
