What Grandmothers Can Teach us About Puerto Rican Culture and Community

2002 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 34-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irma Olmedo
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Valuable Source ◽  
Puerto Rican Women ◽  
Chicago Area ◽  
Puerto Rican Culture

The memorias of Puerto Rican abuelas (grandmothers) can be a valuable source for understanding how these women see themselves as members of a community and how they characterize what constitutes the Puerto Rican community in the diaspora. Project Memorias sought to elicit the memoires of a group of elderly Puerto Rican women in order to understand aspects of Puerto Rican history and culture and their roles in the migration to the mainland. In the project these abuelas puertorriqueñas discussed their lives, their families in Puerto Rico, their transition to the Chicago area, and the changes they see as they observe the community around them.

Rates of Cesarean Delivery Among Puerto Rican Women - Puerto Rico and the U.S. Mainland, 1992-2002

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Varela-Flores ◽  
◽  
H. Vázquez-Rivera ◽  
F. Menacker ◽  
Y. Ahmed ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Cesarean Delivery ◽  
Puerto Rican Women ◽  
The U.S

“El Grito de Caguana”

2019 ◽  
pp. 229-250
Author(s):  
Rosalina Diaz
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Small Group ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Hunger Strike ◽  
Sacred Places ◽  
Puerto Rican Culture ◽  
Site Managers

On July 25, 2005, a small group of “Taino” reclaimed the Caguana Ceremonial Center in Utuado, Puerto Rico, in the name of their ancestors. The protestors demanded, “End the destruction and desecration of our sanctuaries, sacred places, archeological sites, coaibays (cemeteries) and ceremonial centers now!” The Taino had utilized the site for years to celebrate traditional rituals, but due to changes in the center’s policies, were suddenly restricted from using the site during certain hours. For the Taino, this was the final straw in an ongoing and escalating conflict with the site managers, The Institute for Puerto Rican Culture, charged by the Puerto Rican Legislature in 1955 with the task of “conserving, promoting, enriching and disseminating the cultural values of Puerto Rico.” The result was a 17-day occupation and hunger strike that brought to the fore issues regarding Puerto Rican identity that had long lay dormant and unchallenged.

US Imperialism and Puerto Rican Needleworkers: Sovereignty, Citizenship, and Women's Labor in a Deep History of Neoliberal Trade

2020 ◽  
Vol 98 ◽  
pp. 142-172
Author(s):  
Aimee Loiselle
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Puerto Rican Women ◽  
Us Imperialism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Operation Bootstrap ◽  
A Site

AbstractIn 1898, US occupation of Puerto Rico opened possibilities for experimentation with manufacturing, investment, tariffs, and citizenship because the Treaty of Paris did not address territorial incorporation. Imperial experimentation started immediately and continued through the liberal policies of the New Deal and World War II, consistently reproducing drastic exceptions. These exceptions were neither permanent nor complete, but the rearrangements of sovereignty and citizenship established Puerto Rico as a site of potential and persistent exemption. Puerto Rican needleworkers were central to the resulting colonial industrialization-not as dormant labor awaiting outside developmental forces but as skilled workers experienced in production. Following US occupation, continental trade agents and manufacturers noted the intricate needlework of Puerto Rican women and their employment in homes and small shops for contractors across the island. Their cooptation and adaptation of this contracting system led to the colonial industrialization, generating bureaucratic, financial, and legal infrastructure later used in Operation Bootstrap, a long-term economic plan devised in the 1940s and 1950s. Labor unions and aggrieved workers contested and resisted this colonial industrialization. They advocated their own proposals and pushed against US economic policies and insular business management. Throughout these fights, the asymmetrical power of the federal government and industrial capital allowed the colonial regime to assert US sovereignty while continually realigning exemptions and redefining citizenship for liberal economic objectives. Rather than representing a weakening of the nation-state, this strong interventionist approach provided scaffolding for Operation Bootstrap, which became a model for the neoliberal projects called export processing zones (EPZs).

scholarly journals Aging in Puerto Rico: A Comparison of Health Status Among Island Puerto Rican and Mainland U.S. Older Adults

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 1056-1078 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Pérez ◽  
Jennifer A. Ailshire
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Health Status ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Puerto Ricans ◽  
Adult Population ◽  
Aging Research ◽  
Puerto Rican Women ◽  
Self Rated Health ◽  
Elderly Health ◽  
Older Adult Population

Objective: To characterize the health status of older island Puerto Ricans, a segment of the U.S. population that has been largely overlooked in aging research. Method: Data from the 2002 Puerto Rican Elderly Health Conditions Project and the 2002 Health and Retirement Study are used to examine differences in disease, disability, and self-rated health among island Puerto Ricans and the mainland U.S.-born older adult population. Differences are further examined by gender. Results: Island Puerto Ricans were less likely to have heart disease, stroke, lung disease, cancer, activities of daily living (ADL) limitations, and poor self-rated health, but more likely to have hypertension and diabetes. Island Puerto Rican women had worse health relative to island Puerto Rican men. Discussion: Recent challenges in the funding and provision of health care in Puerto Rico are worrisome given the large number of aging island adults, many of whom have hypertension and diabetes, two conditions that require long-term medical care.

Flowing through My Veins

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isar P. Godreau
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Puerto Ricans ◽  
National Pride ◽  
Cultural Policies ◽  
Puerto Rican Culture ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Definition Of

This chapter discusses how the scripts of blackness developed in tandem with discourses of race mixture that supported populist forms of governance and cultural policies in the 1940s and 1950s. The biological definition of Puerto Ricans as a mixture of three races—the Taíno, the Spanish, and the African—had been circulating since the nineteenth century in both criollo and U.S. writings about Puerto Rico, but before the 1950s, this was not institutionally constructed as an object of national pride. It was after the 1950s that the ideology of race mixture was taken up as a populist State discourse and implemented through the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture. Indeed, race mixture became a central part of the state's cultural program of development and modernization for Puerto Rico.

Caring for Labor History

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 65-69
Author(s):  
Emma Amador
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Labor History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Reproductive Politics ◽  
Domestic Worker ◽  
Puerto Rican Women ◽  
History Of

This essay charts how the author’s interest in labor history and the history of care work were inspired by her own family history of migrations from Puerto Rico to the United States. It considers how her grandmother’s stories about being a child needle worker in Puerto Rico and a migrant domestic worker in New York led her to think critically about the connections and overlap between the home and workplace in the lives of Puerto Rican women. As a student, investigating her personal history led her to discover a rich tradition of Puerto Rican feminist labor history that raised questions about reproductive politics and caring labor that remain pressing in our contemporary moment.

Geographical Differentials in the Socioeconomic Status of Puerto Ricans: Human Capital Variations and Labor Market Characteristics

1992 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 1267-1290 ◽  
Author(s):  
María E. Enchautegui
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Human Capital ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Puerto Ricans ◽  
Socioeconomic Outcomes ◽  
Puerto Rican Women ◽  
Female Headship

This article examines the role of human capital and labor market characteristics in explaining geographical and individual differentials in socioeconomic outcomes of Puerto Rican women. The better socioeconomic performance of Puerto Ricans outside the Northeast can be in part related to their larger amount of human capital. Labor market characteristics also play a role, but their effects are generally small. Net of other characteristics, Northeast residence reduces labor force participation, increases female headship, but reduces welfare use. Of all groups examined, recent migrants from Puerto Rico located in the Northeast show the poorest socioeconomic outcomes.

Union Carbide and the Community Surrounding it: The Case of a Community in Puerto Rico

1985 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 561-583 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ida Susser
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Medical Anthropology ◽  
Rural Community ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
Plant Management ◽  
Industrial Workers ◽  
Union Carbide ◽  
Community Residents ◽  
Puerto Rican Culture

Based on fieldwork in Puerto Rico, this article examines the views on health hazards of residents in a semi-rural community in relation to the influx of industrial development since the early 1970s. It is suggested that “folk” terminology and particular aspects of Puerto Rican culture are less significant in this instance than many studies in medical anthropology suggest. The focus is on the emergence of a protest movement concerned with health problems which community residents and workers attribute to a nearby Union Carbide factory. Residents of El Ingenio, Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, have brought a law suit against Union Carbide and, the management of the plant has attempted to dispel the conflict. The article argues that health concerns of residents, industrial workers, and plant management cannot be interpreted without taking into account problems of unemployment, political affiliations, and company policies and their impact over time.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document