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America's answer to communism: Luis Muñoz Marín and Puerto Rican exemplarity.

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Title: America's answer to communism: Luis Muñoz Marín and Puerto Rican exemplarity.
Authors: Morales, Alexander W.1 (AUTHOR) alexander.morales@vanderbilt.edu, Myres, Jason D.2 (AUTHOR)
Source: Quarterly Journal of Speech. May2026, Vol. 112 Issue 2, p109-133. 25p.
Subject Terms: *Rhetoric, Communism, Geopolitics, Imperialism, Cold War, 1945-1991
Geographic Terms: Puerto Rico
People: Muñoz Marín, Luis, 1898-1980
Abstract: This article analyzes Luis Muñoz Marín's symbolic redeployment of Puerto Rican exemplarity, the geopolitical and strategic logic of situating the island as a hemispheric gateway to the Americas, following the failed assassinations and political insurgencies of 1950. By casting his nationalist adversaries as communist puppets of Eastern empires, Muñoz Marín solidified his position as Puerto Rico's governor and demonstrated his allegiance to U.S. administrations during the Cold War. In this regard, Muñoz Marín used the symbolic, geopolitical, and military exemplarity of Puerto Rico to navigate a colonial double-bind, the notion that a colonial power must control the Caribbean as an (inward/outward) invasion point. To this end, we read Muñoz Marín's rhetoric as a form of resistance against geopolitical alignment, revealing the anticolonial advantages of embracing the island's rhetorical hybridity that manifests at the border between national independence and federated statehood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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Database: Education Research Complete
Description
Abstract:This article analyzes Luis Muñoz Marín's symbolic redeployment of Puerto Rican exemplarity, the geopolitical and strategic logic of situating the island as a hemispheric gateway to the Americas, following the failed assassinations and political insurgencies of 1950. By casting his nationalist adversaries as communist puppets of Eastern empires, Muñoz Marín solidified his position as Puerto Rico's governor and demonstrated his allegiance to U.S. administrations during the Cold War. In this regard, Muñoz Marín used the symbolic, geopolitical, and military exemplarity of Puerto Rico to navigate a colonial double-bind, the notion that a colonial power must control the Caribbean as an (inward/outward) invasion point. To this end, we read Muñoz Marín's rhetoric as a form of resistance against geopolitical alignment, revealing the anticolonial advantages of embracing the island's rhetorical hybridity that manifests at the border between national independence and federated statehood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
ISSN:00335630
DOI:10.1080/00335630.2026.2630838