Military Camp in the Middle of a Public Square

Box 428, Folder 2, Photo 5147

San Juan National Historic Site (NPS) > San Juan NHS Resource Records Collection > Series VIII Visual Materiales 1788-2017, Subseries B Photographs 1890 - 2011 > Box 428 - Folder 2 - 1898 Colleciton (29) - Undated

Municipio desconocido | Unknown Municipality

[1898?]

Title assigned by the cataloging team. The general description, date, or geographical coverage has information furnished by the San Juan National Historic Site, Puerto Rico.

Under Spanish rule, public squares were the unit from which towns were constituted and where Spanish and creole cultural identities came together. The military camp established at the center of this space, after the invasion of 1898, denotes a recognition to the importance of the social dynamics which take place in it as well as to the symbols of power imposed by Spain, and which must be resignified. This appropriation encloses de double purpose of normalizing the military presence of the United States in Puerto Rico, while continuing the process of capitalist exploitation and subjugation initiated by Spanish colonialism. The new acculturation process was not exempt from resistance by Puerto Ricans and, the military invasion that was initially received as a redemption of Spanish absolutism, did not take long to exert the same pattern of oppression over the population. Consequently, the construction of a cultural identity of its own that would allow the subaltern to transcend its colonial state was adjourned once more.

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Fundación Luis Muñoz Marín

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