Doug Mack's The Not Quite States of America

Upon opening the ARC for Doug Mack's The Not Quite States of America: Dispatches from the Territories and Other Far-Flung Outposts from the USA, I encountered this map. I immediately felt ashamed. Throughout my life I have considered "Americans" ignorant because most of them don't know anything about Puerto Rico. However, coming face to face with the totality of the U.S. empire, I realized that I was just as ignorant to the plight of the people from the other colonies.

This realization had dawned on the author months before as he and his wife sorted their quarter collection. A travel writer with a degree in U.S. history, Mack considered himself an expert on all things Americana. When he looked at the quarters from the fifty states he was able to identify the images included on the back. However, he was mystified by those on the coins that represented the territories. He begins by asking himself, "What does a colony even look like in the twenty-first century. In my mind I pictured San Felipe del Morro, the Spanish fortification that up to World War II protected the entrance to the San Juan harbor as I raced through the myriad of ways we are oppressed by the United States's Congress.

Mack decided to embark on a journey to the U.S. Virgin Islands to learn more about their history which had not been taught to him in any of his classes. Once there he learns that residents of these three islands do not have access to the primary sources that recorded their history. Most of them are kept in Denmark, as the islands were a Danish colony before switching hands, and the rest are in the United States. Nonetheless, through conversations with locals and historians as well as by visiting various sites with historic significance, he manages to paint a picture of what life has been like in St. Thomas and St. Croix--St. John gets mentioned as well. He also asks the locals if they would prefer to become a state. As I read the quote pictured on the left, I realized that at least one other territory had people who felt as many Puerto Ricans do about our tenuous relationship with the U.S.

The author then visits American Samoa. I have to admit, the first thing I thought of when I read he was visiting that country is this riveting 2015 segment on territories from John Oliver's Last Week Tonight. One of the things that struck me about the clip was that American Samoans are not citizens, but rather nationals. A fact that the author points out by including personal stories of how they must travel to get their citizenship and the lack of health care options for the island's veterans. Mack also tells of several cases winding their way up toward the supreme court to determine if the people from American Samoa should be granted citizenship, an effort that is hindered in part by Samoans who oppose it, as well as precedent set in the Insular Cases, and how the law interprets the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.

When the author travelled to Guam, he had this to say about how the United States justified acquiring these colonies:

Mack talks about the Insular Cases and how they defined the residents of the territories as alien races. While explaining the views that "Americans" had and that justifies their treatment of us--and by "us" I mean people born in the territories--he writes that "The human capacity for fear of the other is astonishing." A fact that, reading this during the weekend when Trump's Muslim ban came into effect and at a time when many "Americans" want to build a literal wall to keep Latin Americans out, feels particularly relevant right now. I took the quote, created the image you see on the right, and shared it on Litsy where it was liked 94 times and inspired two people to add the book to their TBR piles.

During the section about Guam, I learned about the Guamanians' efforts to lobby for congressional representation as well as WWII's deadly Battle of Guam (the deadliest battle ever on American soil) and read the following passage on the Insular Cases which I highlighted and shared on Litsy:

After Guam, the author visits the Northern Mariana Islands. By this point he--and quite frankly myself--has a deeper appreciation for the territories. During this segment of the book he writes, "You cannot write an honest master narrative of the United States of America without including the territories as key components. And you cannot write an honest master narrative of the territories without feeling acutely uncomfortable about the United States and its struggles to live up to its own ideals." This quote becomes particularly powerful when it is followed by the revelation that residents of Saipan were placed in camps for two years following WWII, a narrative that echoes the reality of Japanese-Americans who were placed in internment camps on U.S. soil for the duration of the war. This colonial mindset by the leaders and lawmakers of the United States has existed since the beginning of the republic. 

The last section of the book is the one I was most interested in, the one that spoke about Puerto Rico. Almost immediately the author admitted that the timing of our being granted citizenship was very convenient for the United States. Incidentally, as you'll see below, in the same paragraph I learned that poet Carl Sandburg had been one of the invading soldiers when the United States landed at Guánica to take Puerto Rico from Spain.

If I were to add quotes or images for everything I liked about the section on Puerto Rico, you would not have to buy or read the book. I was pleasantly surprised that it began in Loiza, as opposed to the customary Old San Juan, and that he visited places that are not normally on tourists' radar such as Arroyo and Barranquitas. By the end of his journey, the author asserts,

He follows that with a description of the collapse of the Puerto Rican economy. Mack makes sure to include that when a state has similar woes they can restructure using Chapter 9 bankruptcy, but that this is not an alternative for us. Though the narrative begins much earlier, it does include the most recent measures out government has taken to try to get us out of this mess.

Our situation in Puerto Rico, as well as that of the other colonies if fraught with issues that affect our daily life. I invite you to read the book and welcome comments and questions you may have that will further your appreciation of the realities faced by we, the underserved U.S. citizens.