As a law professor and legal researcher and writer, I am fascinated by the intersection of law and culture generally, and by legal culture in particular. I started to study these subjects as a comparativist, and I use them regularly in my Comparative Law course. But I also developed a strong interest in law and culture in the United States context and used the legal relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico as my personal frame of reference on this general subject. Cultural constructs are central to an understanding of the development of law as it is applied to the territorial possessions of the United States generally, and to Puerto Rico in particular. The articles, chapters and manuscripts that I post here are my primary non-book-length publications and current work(s)-in-progress.
Articles
Afterword: Outsider Citizenships and Multidimensional Borders: The Power and Danger of Not Belonging, Cleveland State Law Review (2005)
A critical review of the essays and articles included in the LatCrit VIII Symposium issue.
Introduction: LatCritical Encounters with Culture, In North-South Frameworks, Florida Law Review (2003)
A critical introduction of a group of articles in the LatCrit VI Symposium issue, discussing...
Reparations Theory and Postcolonial Puerto Rico: Some Preliminary Thoughts, La Raza L. J. (2002)
Applying recent Critical Race Theory reparations discourse to inform Puerto Rico's transition to any one...
The Accidental Crit II: Culture and the Looking Glass of Exile, Denver U. L. Rev. (2001)
A LatCritical look at the then-current "Latina/o Musical Moment" represented by the popularity of artists...
Puerto Rico: Cultural Nation, American Colony, Mich. J. Race and Law (2000)
A study of Puerto Rico's century-old legal relationship with the United States, and how it...
Contributions to Books
The Story of Downes v. Bidwell: "The Constitution Follows the Flag ... But Doesn't Quite Catch up With It", Race Law Stories (2008)
A study of the principal decision of the Insular Cases of 1901, which has provided...
Popular Press
OpEd: Breaking UF Racial Barriers, The Gainesville Sun (2008)
An OpEd describing the legal and personal struggle to desegregate the University of Florida College...
Unpublished Papers
From Downes v. Bidwell to Boumediene v. Bush: "The Constitution Follows the Flag ... but it [still] Doesn't quite catch up with It", ExpressO (2009)
Boumediene v. Bush, resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court in June of 2008, granted habeas...