We Don't Own Anything: An Investigation of How American Settler Ideologies Enabled Decolonial Resistance in Puerto Rico and Hawai'i

Abstract

When analyzing the impact of Western colonialism, it is natural to take a historical approach and study the dynamics of core and periphery produced by centuries of European invasion upon Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Yet, colonialism is not an artifact; the domination of modern empires can be observed globally in commonwealths and territories today. In focusing on the present occupation of Puerto Rico and Hawai'i by the U.S., I will develop a framework of analysis that puts legal pluralism into conversation with scholarship on settler colonialism, thus articulating that modern day colonialism still attempts to define race talk, but counterintuitively, cultivates space for active decolonization and resistance to empire.