10/7/2023 0 Comments Rough draft essay of world war 2The presidentially appointed governor of Puerto Rico, Arthur Yager, feared that Puerto Ricans may not show up for the first registration date, but they proved him wrong. Citizenship had been touted as an act of decolonization, so once the draft law passed and eventually extended to the island, Puerto Ricans’ embrace of the draft became a referendum on the acceptance of citizenship, and of American rule. Puerto Ricans were not wanted by a racist military that deemed non-white men as inferior. When citizenship was extended to the Puerto Ricans, enlisting them to fight in World War I was not part of the equation. On December 7, 1915, Wilson had made clear to Congress that as part of obtaining international credibility, both for his policy of bettering relationships with Latin America and for his New Diplomacy efforts to end WWI, the United States had to approve the Jones Act expanding the civilian government in Puerto Rico and extending US citizenship to its inhabitants. Citizenship for the Puerto Ricans would strengthen President Wilson’s envisioned peace-part of which was based on the self-determination of nations. The Woodrow Wilson administration also believed that it would gain diplomatic clout from granting citizenship and some measures of self-government to the Puerto Ricans. Powerful lobbyists (including congressmen, military theorists, former presidents, and governors of Puerto Rico) argued that citizenship would quench unrest in Puerto Rico and lead to socio-political stability. For the US War Department, stability on the island was essential to securing US hegemony in the Circum-Caribbean. Between 19 there was growing discontent with American rule among Puerto Rico’s population. Military planners worried that American territories would be hard to defend from an invasion if the native population did not support the American forces. The question remains: Why did the US extend citizenship to the people of Puerto Rico in 1917? There were many reasons. On May 20, just two days after Congress passed the Selective Service Law, the Puerto Rican Chamber of Delegates (an elected colonial legislature) demanded that Puerto Rico be included in the draft and the war plans as a matter of equality. Further, when the original draft law was passed it excluded Puerto Rico. Moreover, the draft did not call for citizens to register but for “American Nationals,” which Puerto Ricans had been since 1900. The only people who were to be excluded from the draft were foreign aliens who declared they would not become citizens and who had entered the country after the declaration of war. This often overlooked fact is key to understanding why the United States did not need to extend US citizenship to the Puerto Ricans so they would be subjected to the Registration Act of (the draft). One of the most important aspects of this law is that it made the island’s inhabitants “Citizens of Porto Rico” and “American Nationals” under the protection of the United States. A military government followed after the war but by 1900 Congress approved the Foraker Act which gave Puerto Rico its first civilian government under US sovereignty. Once in possession of the Puerto Rican archipelago, the United States had to decide what to do with its inhabitants. Puerto Rico was one of the military and diplomatic objectives sought by US strategists. The United States took over Puerto Rico in the aftermath of what US historians call the Spanish-American War. History is more than a chronology of events leading to each other. Was US citizenship extended to the Puerto Ricans in order to draft them into the military? The answer is, no, not at all. In fact, on March 2, 1917, the United States extended US citizenship to the Puerto Ricans via the Jones Act, and on April 6 it declared war on Germany and the Central Powers. Perhaps the most insidious of these myths is the one in which US citizenship is extended to the people of Puerto Rico by an empire in need of manpower or cannon fodder for the Western Front. The Puerto Rican experience in World War I is wrapped in myth. World War I marks both the beginning of Puerto Rican units serving outside the island and of Puerto Rican mass participation in the armed forces of the United States, a trend that continues to this day. However, before World War I, military service in Puerto Rico was limited to a single regiment of no more than 2,500 men who performed local colonial duties. Puerto Ricans have been serving in the US military since 1899, when Congress authorized the creation of the Battalion of Porto Rican Volunteers in the aftermath of the Cuban-Filipino-Spanish-American War of 1898. Between 18,000 and 20,000 Puerto Ricans served in the United States Armed Forces during World War I.
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