Empire

The theme of gender and sexuality is related to social power. In Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science, and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico, Briggs shows how race, class, gender, and power are interrelated and interconnected. Puerto Rican culture has been sexualized, and the sexualization of Puerto Rico has been largely or exclusively the projection of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant values placed upon a darker-skinned, Catholic populace. The result has been the conceptualization of an exotic otherness, coupled with a simultaneous fear. Puerto Ricans have been criticized as developing a culture of poverty in the United States, and Puerto Rican families are blamed.

Regarding the theme of gender and sexuality and how it is related to citizenship and immigration, Briggs shows that white Americans have projected the culture of poverty on Puerto Rico by blaming Puerto Ricans, rather than acknowledging the sociological roots of the problem that can be traced to...
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