CENTRO Journal: Spring 2022 | Volume 34 | Number 1

SPECIAL ISSUE: Back to the future: The Implications of Balzac One Hundred Years LaterGuest Editors: Charles R. Venator-Santiago and José Javier Colón MoreraThe year 2022 marks the centennial of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Balzac v. People of Porto Rico, perhaps the most consequential of the Insular Cases. Balzac affirmed the federal government’s power to rule Puerto Rico and its residents separately and unequally within the US polity. All the efforts to get the United States Supreme Court to revoke this precedent explicitly have failed. In a way, it is “the elephant in the room” that the federal government is now trying to ignore—not very successfully—in the context of the apparent decay of the colonial system put in place through the Foraker Organic Act of 1900.This special issue of the CENTRO Journal collects several articles about this monumentally important judicial precedent and its continuous presence in the most important and populated colony remaining in the world. The articles presented help us understand the enduring continuities and discontinuities of the application of the doctrine of territorial non-incorporation to Puerto Rico, a possession inhabited by US citizens.The articles examine different dimensions of the legacy and continued impact of Balzac and capture many of the complexities of this century of colonialism by judicial decree. Furthermore, they provide us with information and analyses that expand our knowledge of the enduring impact of Balzac; provide reflections that help contextualize or historicize Balzac and its continued relevance; examine the relations between Balzac and the citizenship status of Puerto Ricans; and present various contemporary debates that arise from this case. These academic contributions shine a light on one of the most consequential Supreme Court rulings that shaped the status of Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans within the US empire.EssaysINTRODUCTION: Back to the future: The Implications of Balzac One Hundred Years Later - Charles R. Venator-Santiago and José Javier Colón MoreraThe Sword of Libel: Jesús María Balsac and The Quest for Equality - Francisco Ortiz SantiniThe ‘New’ Insular Cases and the Territorial Clause: From Temporary Incorporation to Permanent Un-incorporation - Jorge M. Farinacci FernósBalzac v. People of Porto Rico and the Problem of the Liberal Narrative of Citizenship, Why Puerto Ricans are Not Second-Class Citizens Today - Charles R. Venator-SantiagoBalzac, US Citizenship and Territorial Incorporation in Puerto Rico - Edgardo MeléndezBalzac v. Porto Rico: Dead Letter after Ramos v. Louisiana? - Joel A. Cosme MoralesThe Undying Dead: Why a Century after Balzac v. Porto Rico the Insular Cases Areas Important as Ever - Bartholomew SparrowPuerto Rico without Puerto Ricans/“Puerto Ricans without Puerto Rico”: A Comment on Balzac versus Porto Rico, A Hundred Years Later - Madeline RománBOOK REVIEWSLatino Orlando: Suburban Transformation and Racial Conflict, by Simone Delerme- Review by Alessandra Rosa“El feminismo no es nuevo”: Las crónicas de Clotilde Betances Jaeger, edited and with an introduction by María Teresa Vera-Rojas - Review by Cristina Pérez JiménezPoets, Philosophers, Lovers: On the Writings of Giannina Braschi, edited by Frederick Luis Aldama and Tess O’Dwyer - Review by Carmen Haydée RiveraRevolution Around the Corner: Voices from the Puerto Rican Socialist Party in the United States, edited by José E. Velázquez, Carmen V. Rivera and Andrés Torres - Review by Efraín Barradas