For over a century Puerto Rico has functioned as an imagined-other for US Americans. A place of contradictory imaginations—exotic yet familiar, poor yet wealthy, non-White yet sometimes White, foreign yet domestic.

These un-interrogated imaginaries are central to colonialism. https://twitter.com/JJRodV/status/1354543046810103812

For over a century US lawmakers "imagined" Puerto Rico. Some saw it as a place full of white people, contrary to Cuba which is primarily "Black" (a racial imaginary often flipped towards different ends). Some saw it as a place full of laziness yet filled with potential workers.

Some saw Puerto Rico as docile and in need of US aide. Some saw Puerto Rico as a rambunctious child needing a stern father figure.

Each of these imaginings substantiated US imposition on the island, expansion of business, and further colonial entrenchment.

There is a direct correlation between how law makers imagine Puerto Rico and what policies, businesses, and laws are imposed on the island.

It is a kind of fantastic hegemonic imagination a la Emilie Townes.

The imagined image of Puerto Rico constructed in the minds of these lawmakers isn't real. It's "fantastic," bordering between real and science fiction. Yet it becomes dominant through media, law, and policy, yielding explicit effects on the lives of Puerto Ricans.

Now, as US Americans speak about and debate Puerto Rican statehood we see yet another iteration of the fantastic hegemonic imagination. An imagined caricature of the island, one with little substance in reality, yet imposed on a people through media, policy, and law.