faculty focus
Who in the World Was Isabel Gonzalez? In his new book, Prof. Sam Erman considers Puerto Rican citizenship
With no vote in presidential elections, no representation in Congress, and no say on constitutional amendments, residents of Puerto Rico are not like other U.S. citizens. For more than a century, their island’s ultimate status has dangled in limbo. In his new book, “Almost Citizens: Puerto Rico, the U.S. Constitution, and Empire” (Cambridge, 2018), USC Gould Prof. Sam Erman recounts the stories of an extraordinary set of Puerto Ricans who advocated for their and their island’s rights. Their efforts shaped the history of U.S. constitutional law, yet never ended their colonial condition. “The island has very little raw power to use in national debates or governance,” he explains. That was before the one-two punch of 2017’s Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria pitched the Caribbean island’s 3.4 million inhabitants into a desperate humanitarian crisis. Erman spoke with USC Gould’s Gilien Silsby about his new book and the unique challenges that now face the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Almost Citizens involved more than legal scholarship on your part. It’s a political history and a family history, too. Yes. My book tells the story of how Puerto Rico became a constitutionally acceptable United States colony in the early 20th century. And that century-old system of racist, imperial governance is largely the system that still controls Puerto Rico.
It all traces back to Gonzalez v. Williams. Why is that case important? Gonzalez v. Williams is a 1904 Supreme Court decision. The case began when Isabel Gonzalez traveled from Puerto Rico to Ellis Island and was turned away as an undesirable alien. She sued, arguing: I’m not an alien. Annexation of Puerto Rico in 1899 made me an American and thus a citizen. The court held that Gonzalez indeed was not an alien, and she was allowed to enter. But it didn’t decide if she was a citizen. This equivocation is important. It’s how the United States approached imperial governance in the early 20th century. The Court didn’t say colonialism as a
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whole is OK. Nor did it rule out allowing colonialism to continue. Instead, it envisioned in-between categories. Perhaps Gonzalez was an American who was not a citizen. My book uses the case to illustrate how it and other judicial evasions and ambiguities nudged the Constitution and imperial governance toward awkward coexistence.
How did you learn about Gonzalez’s life? A decade or so ago, Isabel Gonzalez’s greatgranddaughter, Belinda Torres-Mary, reached out to me. She was researching her family. We teamed up and made some surprising discoveries. My favorite find involves Gonzalez’s first husband. Family lore held that he was of caballero extraction — of gentlemanly stock. I was skeptical. The records indicated she had kids out of wedlock and could not produce their father. But then Belinda suggested that perhaps Caballero was a last name. A bit of searching proved her right. Gonzalez had married a man named Caballero. He died of tuberculosis at a tragically
