scholarly journals Las historias que dejó María: Educators and Researchers Bearing Witness to the Coloniality of Displacement

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Astrid Sambolín Morales ◽  
Molly Hamm-Rodríguez ◽  
Bethzaida Morales Rivera ◽  
Jasmin Nuñez Tejada ◽  
Manuel Hernandez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Public School ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Puerto Ricans ◽  
Sense Making ◽  
Bearing Witness ◽  
Collaborative Project ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Public School Educators ◽  
Displaced Students

This article centers the experiences of two university researchers in Colorado and four public school educators from Florida as they engaged in a dialogic process of counter-storytelling to reject one-dimensional narratives and embrace contradictions and vulnerabilities throughout the process. The authors speak against the deficit stories and colonizing practices that have affected Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans pre- and post-Hurricane María. This collaborative project humanizes the ongoing experiences of multiple displacements resulting from U.S. colonialism, racism, white supremacy ideologies, and unnatural disasters. Using a series of letters as the basis for reflection, we trace three major themes across our collaborative sense-making: (1) a desire to resist systems of white supremacy and coloniality by positioning teachers, displaced students, and their families as agents rather than victims; (2) a sense of (un)belonging that transcends or exists beyond the storm’s landfall; and (3) the power of counter-storytelling as a humanizing, liberating act.

scholarly journals Constructing Spiritual Blackness

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Omar Ramadan-Santiago
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Puerto Ricans ◽  
Black Identity ◽  
Caribbean Region ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Imagined Community ◽  
Identification Process ◽  
Global Construction

Abstract In this article, I address how my interlocutors, members of the Rastafari community in Puerto Rico, claim that they identify with Blackness and Africanness in a manner different from other Black-identifying Puerto Ricans. Their identification process presents a spiritual and global construction of Blackness that does not fit within the typical narratives often used to discuss Black identity in Puerto Rico. I argue that their performance of a spiritually Black identity creates a different understanding of Blackness in Puerto Rico, one that is not nation-based but rather worldwide. This construction of Blackness and Black identity allows my interlocutors to create an imagined community of Blackness and African descent that extends past Puerto Rico’s borders toward the greater Caribbean region and African continent. In the first section, I discuss how Blackness is understood and emplaced in Puerto Rico and why this construction is considered too limiting by my interlocutors. I then address their own construction of Blackness, what I refer to as “spiritual Blackness,” and how they believe it diverges from Afro-Boricua/Black Puerto Rican identity. In the final section, I direct focus to how Africa is centralized in the construction of spiritual Blackness.

Effective Modern Campaigns Against Inequality and Poverty in the United States

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred Brooks ◽  
Amanda Gutwirth
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Public School ◽  
Common Good ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Past ◽  
Poverty And Inequality ◽  
The Common ◽  
Public School Educators ◽  
Macro Social Work

If one of the goals of macro social work in the United States is to decrease poverty and inequality, by most measures it has largely failed that mission over the past 40 years. After briefly documenting the four-decade rise in inequality and extreme poverty in the United States, three organizing campaigns are highlighted—living wage, Fight for $15, and strikes by public school educators—that fought hard to reverse such trends. A strategy, “bargaining for the common good,” which was implemented across those campaigns, is analyzed as a key ingredient to their success.

The Politics of Status

2020 ◽  
pp. 34-53
Author(s):  
Amílcar Antonio Barreto
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Puerto Ricans ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Of The Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Status ◽  
Political Party System

Puerto Ricans, US subjects since 1898, were naturalized en masse in 1917. Congress did so to eliminate the possibility of independence from the US. That citizenship is the cornerstone of island-mainland relations for those advocating a continued relationship with the United States—either in the form of the 1952 Commonwealth constitution or statehood. The epicenter of Puerto Rican partisan life remains the status question. This remarkably stable political party system featured two strong parties of near-equal strength—the pro-Commonwealth PPD and its statehood challenger, the PNP— and a small independence party, the PIP. A core feature of the PNP’s platform has been estadidad jíbara—"creole statehood.” In theory, a future State of Puerto Rico would be allowed to retain its cultural and linguistic autonomy while attaining full membership as the 51st state of the Union.

Buenaventura Lakes

2020 ◽  
pp. 19-33
Author(s):  
Simone Delerme
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Real Estate ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Puerto Ricans ◽  
Central Florida ◽  
Country Club ◽  
Gateway Cities ◽  
Osceola County

Chapter 1 sets the scene in Osceola County, Florida. The chapter goes back to the 1970s, to the formation of an international consortium of real estate developers—“the Mexican Millionaires”—who used real estate marketing strategies and the visceral imagery of luxurious country club living to attract Puerto Ricans to the Buenaventura Lakes suburb. This historical chapter shows how instrumental these corporate partners were in fostering an awareness of Greater Orlando’s real estate opportunities on the island of Puerto Rico and in the Puerto Rican concentrated communities of New York and Chicago, and directing the flow of mainland and island Puerto Ricans towards Greater Orlando instead of the traditional gateway cities. As a result, they created one of the largest Puerto Rican-concentrated suburbs in Central Florida.

Rescued from their Invisibility: The Afro-Puerto Ricans of Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century San Mateo de Cangrejos, Puerto Rico

2007 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 551-586 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Stark
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Family Formation ◽  
Puerto Ricans ◽  
Local Economy ◽  
Main Trunk ◽  
Marriage And Family ◽  
Fugitive Slaves

The black “root” has been systematically “uprooted” from the main “trunk” of the Puerto Rican nation.Jorge DuanyScholars who study Puerto Rico's past have struggled with the question of how to define the island’s national identity. Is the essence of Puerto Rican identity rooted in Spain, does it have its origins in Africa, in the legacy of the native Tainos, or is it a product of two or all three of these? This polemical question has yet to be resolved and remains a subject of much debate. The island's black past is often overlooked, and what has been written tends to focus on the enslaved labor force and its ties to the nineteenth-century plantation economy. Few works are specifically devoted to the study of the island's seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Afro-Puerto Rican population. Recent scholarship has begun to address this oversight. For example, the efforts of fugitive slaves and free black West Indian migrants making their way to Puerto Rico have been well documented. Yet, little is known about the number or identity of these runaways. How many slaves made their way to freedom in Puerto Rico, who were they, and where did they come from? Perhaps more importantly, what about their new lives on the island? How were they able to create a sense of belonging, both as individuals and as part of a community within the island's existing population and society? What follows strives to answer these questions by taking a closer look first at the number and identity of these fugitives, and second at how new arrivals were assimilated into their new surroundings through marriage and family formation while their integration was facilitated by participation in the local economy. Through their religious and civic activity Afro-Puerto Ricans were able to create a niche for themselves in San Juan and eventually a community of their own in Cangrejos. In doing so, they helped shape the island's national identity.

GLBT Teachers: The Evolving Legal Protections

2008 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 530-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne E. Eckes ◽  
Martha M. McCarthy
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Public School ◽  
Comprehensive Analysis ◽  
Public Employees ◽  
Legal Requirements ◽  
Public School Educators ◽  
Case Basis

Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT) public school educators’ rights have not been clearly delineated by the courts. As such, the outcomes in legal controversies involving adverse employment consequences based on teachers’ sexual orientation have varied somewhat across jurisdictions and have been decided on a case-by-case basis. To examine the evolving law in this arena, this article analyzes all litigation pertaining to GLBT educators and antidiscrimination statutory provisions in all 50 states. By identifying and examining federal and state protections, this research contributes to an understanding of the role that legal requirements play in protecting GLBT public employees. Based on the comprehensive analysis of litigation and legislation, this article offers model statutory language to protect GLBT public employees.

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.

Pagan de Colon, Petroamerica

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
John F. Longres
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Puerto Ricans ◽  
Department Of Labor ◽  
Departments Of Education ◽  
Employment Security ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Safe Working

Petroamerica Pagan de Colon (1911–1980), was a champion of employment, security, safe working conditions, and workers' rights for Puerto Ricans. She worked at the Departments of Education and Labor in Puerto Rico and then the U.S. Department of Labor.

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