La raza y lo respetable: las políticas de la prostitución y la ciudadanía en Ponce en la última decada del siglo XIX

Abstract

This article argues that ideas of morality and respectability historically have been crucial to constructions of racial identity in Puerto Rico. Concerns about race, "decency", and sexuality have in turn played important roles in the articulation of collective political identities. The article focuses on the anti-prostitution campaigns of the 1890‘s in Ponce, in which, despite their struggles to the contrary, working women judged sexually unruly were harassed, denounced, and ultimately discursively darkened. This decade-long process facilitated the creation of a historical first in Puerto Rico: a powerful, racially-neutral political alliance between plebeian and elite men within the Liberal Party.

URI: http://hdl.handle.net/11721/1505