Las islas de los galleros: la irrupción de la visualidad
General Material Designation
[Article]
First Statement of Responsibility
Valderrama Negrón, Ninel
SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
The United States' victory in the Spanish-American War (1898) was very effective in military terms. However, the colonial incorporation of Cuba, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico was not an easy task, and it generated many domestic debates on how to become a dominant power while still championing democracy and freedom. Photography was employed as a new technology to conquer the public imagination regarding these possessions. This paper argues that the US's imperial fantasy was constructed through the popular media that appeared almost immediately after the war. These publications were used as a political platform for the possible ways in which foreign policy could be conducted. While some publications had a clear expansionist agenda, others-like Our Islands and Their People-failed to produce an entirely imperial narrative. At first glance, this book seems to echo other imperialist publications; nevertheless, it contains several conflicted narratives that seem to undermine its purpose. Our Islands is a complex publication that reveals deep anxieties which could reflect the conflicted birth of the American empire. For example, through its photographs, the book naturalized cockfighting as a local custom of these islands.Far from being innocent, this inclusion frames the publication in a different light, as the US had banned cockfighting after the war. This essay studies the symbolic role of cockfighting within the ideological struggle over how the US sought to redefine its imperial enterprise through broader discourses such as popular media.
SET
Date of Publication
2020
Title
TRANSMODERNITY: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World