Dispatches from the Edge of Empire

Abstract:This essay about disaster, imperialism, and concepts of home comprises three parts. The first explores attempts to grapple with the meaning of centuries of colonization as it plays out even in the most minor, mundane details. The second engages relevant legal frameworks that can aid in understanding issues of race and gender within a neoimperial context. This section focuses on two legal cases associated with Adolfina Villanueva Osorio, a resident of Loíza, Puerto Rico, whom armed police and marshals attempted to force from her home based on a court order favoring the interests of the wealthy new owner of the land. In the process of the forcible eviction, which took place in 1980, the police murdered Adolfina in front of her family. In discussing these cases, I consider intersections of gendered bodies and property rights to better understand the ongoing effects of neoliberalism, and specifically how these impact concepts of home. The third part looks at the socially engaged work of the artists known as Las Nietas de Nonó, two sisters who have created a performance space in their grandparents' former house in the Barrio of San Antón, in Carolina, Puerto Rico. As I discuss their interventionary, avant-garde work, I consider how art, colonial realities, and the law coexist in the details of everyday life.