Discussion of the assimilation of Puerto Ricans in the United States has focused on two factors: social standing and the loss of

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问题     Discussion of the assimilation of Puerto Ricans in the United States has focused on two factors: social standing and the loss of national culture. In general, excessive stress is placed on one factor or the other, depending on whether the commentator is North American or Puerto Rican. Many American social scientists , such as Oscar Handling, Joseph Fitzpatrick, and Oscar Lewis, consider Puerto Ricans as the most recent in the long line of ethnic entrants to occupy the lowest rung on the social ladder. Such a " socio-demographic" approach tends to regard assimilation as a benign process, taking for granted increased economic advantage and inevitable cultural integration, in a supposedly egalitarian context. However, this approach fails to take into account the colonial nature of the Puerto Rican case, with this group, unlike their European predecessors, coming from a nation politically subordinated to the United States. E-ven the "radical" critiques of this mainstream research model, such as the critique developed in Divided Society, attach the issue of ethnic assimilation too mechanically to factors of economic and social mobility, and are thus unable to illuminate the cultural subordination of Puerto Ricans as a colonial minority.
    In contrasts, the "colonialist" approach of island-based writers such as Eduardo Seda-Bpnilla, Manuel Maldonado-Denis, and Luis Neives-Falcon tends to view assimilation as the forced loss of national culture accommodation among other Puerto Ricans thinkers. The writings of Eugenio Fernandez Mendez clearly exemplify this tradition, and many supporters of Puerto Rico’s commonwealth status share the same universalizing orientation. But the Puerto Rican intellectuals who have written most about the assimilation process in the United States all advance cultural nationalist views, advocating the preservation of minority cultural distinctions and rejecting what they see as the subjugation of colonial nationalities.
    This cultural and political emphasis is appropriate, but the colonialists thinkers misdirect it, overlooking the class relations at work in both Puerto Rican and North American history. They pose the clash of national cultures as an absolute polarity, with each culture understood a static and undifferentiated. Yet both Puerto Rican and North American traditions have been subject to constant challenge from cultural forces within their own societies, forces that may move toward each other in ways that cannot be written off as mere "assimilation". Consider, for example, the indigenous and Afro-Caribbean traditions in Puerto Rican culture and how they influence and influenced by other Caribbean cultures and Black cultures in the United States. The elements of coercion and inequality, so central to cultural contact according to the colonialist framework, play no role in this kind of convergence of racially and ethnically different elements of the same class.
The "colonialist" approach is so called because its practitioners______.

选项 A、support Puerto Rico’s commonwealth status
B、have a strong tradition of culture accommodation
C、emphasize the class relations at work in both Puerto Rican and North American history
D、regard the political relation of Puerto Rico to the United States as a significant factor in the experience of Puerto Ricans

答案D

解析 该题属于细节推理题。文中几处都表明波多黎各作家的“殖民论方法”强调波多黎各对美国的殖民隶属性,如第一段最后一句中的the cultural subordination of Puerto Ricans as a colo—nial minority,第二段第一句的后半句和第二段最后一句中的rejecting what they see as the subjuga—tion of colonial nationalists等,并且作者在最后一段最后一句批评这种方法的不足时也指出“强制性、不平等性的因素是殖民论的理论框架的核心,而这种因素在不同阶级,不同种族或民族的融合中并不起什么作用。”故本题选选项[D]。
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