ABSTRACT
Nations hardly ever have the luxury to develop their identity in strict introspection; extraneous factors intervene. The process usually includes some degree of contrasting with neighbors or ideal models. Nations develop in the context of other nations. Mexico and Puerto Rico are no exceptions. Their modem history has never ceased to be played out on a field on which the United States has occupied a significant, often monopolizing, percentage of space. And since the United States has long since abandoned any pretense of being a peer in an American fraternity, preferring to blatantly fulfill its arrogated role of overseer of forced hegemony, Mexico and Puerto Rico naturally adopted a defensive stance of radical binary opposition: we against them.
