The next entry in Molly’s Puerto Rico Sketchbook for the Paris Review is live.
Puerto Rico was colonized before the United States, and by the time U.S. gunboats boomed into its harbor in 1898, it had enjoyed its hard-won autonomy from Spain for several months—not that this helped the island in the eyes of its new overlords. In the opinion of many U.S. politicians, Puerto Rico was populated by members of the deficient “Spanish” race, too lazy and primitive to be granted either independence or statehood. How little some attitudes change.
Full article available here: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/12/20/puerto-rico-sketchbook-houses-still-standing/