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Can we apply the models of Coloniality of Power and Subalternity to people of color in the United States?

The models of internal colonialism and neocolonialism have been used to describe the socio, economic and political status of people of color in the United States. Scholars coming from African American studies and Ethnic Studies (i.e. Robert Allen, Mario Barrera, Rodolfo AcuÒa) originally deployed such models responding to an emerging (cultural) nationalism among people of color. Currently, these models do not hold much currency, partly because of an effective critique coming from feminist and other groups excluded from the type of nationalism practiced during the 60s and 70s, and partly because postmodernism and post-colonialism questioned many assumptions on what these models had been built. It is my judgment that people of color have now been left without an effective model to understand their place (read: to cognitively map their existence), first, in the United States, and secondly, in the world. Which lead me to ask the following question, can marginalized people of color use the models of coloniality of power and subalternity given that they reside within the boundaries of the worldís super-power? Can we classify poor/working class people of color as ìsubaltern?î Are Latin@s, Blacks, Native Americans under the coloniality of power?
In opposition to the assimilation model that sought upward mobility for ëminorityí groups, cultural nationalist groups sought separation and self-determination (at least in their rhetoric), and in the case of Chican@s/Latin@s and Blacks, even linked their struggles to independence and revolutionary movements in the third world. In this respect, these movements had a vague notion of the workings of a world-systems. By seeking separation, U.S. nationalist movements were renouncing the ìmasterís houseî and all its benefits. In a sense, nationalist saw themselves as ìfield negroesî (Malcolm X) and the ìfieldî extended to the third world (hence peopleís refusal to fight in Vietnam). I do not seek to romanticize U.S. nationalist movement, but point out that at least these groups did not sought incorporation into the worldís super-power, they articulated themselves as colonized peoples against capitalism (again, even if only in feeling and rhetoric).
If each society has its subalterns, this must also be true to the United States. I would say that poor people of color, especially those that are undocumented, suffer a subaltern status. The coloniality model cannot be easily applied to ethnic communities in the United States. As it has been developed, coloniality can only apply to entire nations. Only nation-states can be colonized, not ethnic groups without geopolitical borders. Even so, it can be argued that ethnic groups take the status of coherent entities, these can be legal (i.e. census, Affirmative Action, anti-discrimination laws), cultural, political and social. To conclude, the coloniality of power and the subaltern models have a lot to contribute to Ethnic Studies.