Social and Political Identities Within and Beyond Empire

• In Event: 20862 - Section on International Migration Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 13: Migration, Race, and Identity

Abstract

The U.S. territories – Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, Guahån, and American Sāmoa – are considered permanently inhabited, unincorporated possessions of the United States. Their emigrants who move to the continent face a social, political, and legal reality that is unique to their territorial status. Based on oral histories with 1st and 2nd generation Puerto Ricans, Samoans, and U.S. Virgin Islanders, I look at how territorial status is articulated through stories of social identities, belonging, and political ideologies. Territorial status is more than a result of past legislation or political moments; rather, it is a colonial citizen-subject making project whose diaspora nuances our understanding of identity and belonging within empire. This project advances a relational colonialisms framework that extends our analytical frame across border lands and waters, and in doing so, reveals understudied and undertheorized insights into the ongoing legacies of colonialism. Preliminary findings reveal a shared experience of liminality that simultaneously restricts belonging and provides a second-sight to navigate their social world.

Author

• Sione Lynn Pili Lister, Arizona State University-Tempe