scholarly journals Give Them Christ: Native Agency in the Evangelization of Puerto Rico, 1900 to 1917

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 196
Author(s):  
Angel Santiago-Vendrell
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Emerging Church ◽  
History Of Christianity ◽  
Cultural Assumptions ◽  
American Missionaries ◽  
Clear Vision ◽  
Mission History ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Evidence

The scholarship on the history of Protestant missions to Puerto Rico after the Spanish– tendencies of the missionaries in the construction of the new Puerto Rican. There is no doubt that the main missionary motif during the 1890s was indeed civilization. Even though the Americanizing motif was part of the evangelistic efforts of some missionaries, new evidence shows that a minority of missionaries, among them Presbyterians James A. McAllister and Judson Underwood, had a clear vision of indigenization/contextualization for the emerging church based on language (Spanish) and culture (Puerto Rican). The spread of Christianity was successful not only because of the missionaries but also because native agents took up the task of evangelizing their own people; they were not passive spectators but active agents translating and processing the message of the gospel to fulfill their own people’s needs based on their own individual cultural assumptions. This article problematizes the past divisions of such evangelizing activities between the history of Christianity, mission history, and theology by analyzing the native ministries of Adela Sousa (a Bible woman) and Miguel Martinez in light of the teachings of the American missionaries. The investigation claims that because of Puerto Rican agents’ roles in the process of evangelization, a new fusion between the history of Christianity, mission history, and theology emerged as soon as new converts embraced and began to preach the gospel.

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).

Conclusion and Epilogue

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirwin R. Shaffer
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
University Students ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Economic Recession ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Private Lands ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University ◽  
Joint State

This concluding chapter explores the legacy of anarchism in Puerto Rico. While anarchist agitation and organizing came to an end in the early 1920s, individual anarchists continued to write to anarchist publications in New York and Havana. In addition, the global economic recession that began in 2008, coupled with efforts by the Puerto Rican government and the Universidad de Puerto Rico to impose new fees on university students in 2010, gave birth to new interest in anarchism on the island as anarchist groups took to the internet, the cafés, and the university grounds. They began working with other groups in cross-sectarian alliances, offering classes on anarchism, reviving anarchist theatre, and drawing attention to the ravages of joint state–corporate attempts to seize private lands. In short, these new Black Flag Boricuas were resurrecting in the present the very history of anarchist agitation and antiauthoritarianism developed a century earlier.

Coffee and Rural Proletarianization in Puerto Rico, 1840–1898

1983 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laird W. Bergad
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Labor Force ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
The Other ◽  
Slave Labor ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean

The development of a labor force has become an important focus of recent historical research on 19th-century Puerto Rico. One center of investigation has been slavery and its linkages to sugar culture.1 Until recently historians had consistently stressed the relative insignificance of slave labor in Puerto Rico.2 However, by focusing at the municipal, or even hacienda level, scholars have begun to generate a more analytical view of 19th-century Puerto Rican slavery. It has been shown that slaves were critical for Puerto Rican planters during the period of rapid sugar expansion in the 1820s and 1830s, and continued as an important source of labor until abolition in 1873. Contrary to prior interpretations, the history of slavery in Puerto Rico differed little from that of the other sugar producing islands of the Caribbean

scholarly journals Everything but the Car: The Carport as Social Space in Puerto Rican Domestic Architecture

2021 ◽  
Vol 90-91 ◽  
pp. 43-58
Author(s):  
Gloria M. Colom Braña
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Functional Space ◽  
Free Fall ◽  
The United States ◽  
Domestic Sphere ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
A Site

The carport, a nondescript functional space within a majority of Puerto Rican houses, often accommodates different social practices throughout the year. Daily household activities such as laundry and childcare often take place in the carport, but it is also a site for landmark events such as birthdays, social gatherings, and Christmas parties. Designed exclusively for car storage, the carport is often used for everything but the car. In order to understand how this space came to be repurposed, this article focuses on the history of the introduction of the car and carport in Puerto Rico. The transformation of a single-use space into an all-purpose space with distinct cultural signifiers happened soon after the spread of the carport. The history of the colonial relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico is tied to the story of changes to the North American house form, particularly the most utilitarian spaces within the domestic sphere. The carport reflects the dreams and illusions of upward mobility and how that came crashing down in a seemingly economic free fall that began roughly in 2007 and has continued spiraling out of control.

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.

Nationalism, Secessionism, and Autonomy

2021 ◽  
pp. 143-172
Author(s):  
André Lecours
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Basque Country ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Constitutional Change ◽  
American Federation ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
History Of

This chapter examines three additional cases: the Basque Country, Puerto Rico, and Québec. The objective behind these supplemental case studies is twofold. First, for the Basque Country, the goal is to understand why there has not been a strengthening of secessionism like in Catalonia. The chapter explains that Basque nationalism is exceptional for its history of political violence, which renders extremely difficult the type of alliance between nationalist forces that has occurred in Catalonia. Next, the chapter looks at Puerto Rico and Québec to assess how a focus on the nature of autonomy to explain the strength of secessionism travels beyond Western Europe. The case of Puerto Rico, where secessionism has always been marginal, helps to tease out the potential importance of perceptions on autonomy. Although Puerto Rican autonomy has not been adjusted, political debates over the constitutional future of the island, namely through multiple referendums on status, have likely fed perceptions that Puerto Ricans can change their autonomy, either through an enhancement of the current status or by becoming a state of the American federation. In Québec, the weakening of secessionism in the last decades has corresponded with a switch from constitutional reform to intergovernmental agreements as instruments for managing the position of the province within the federation. Constitutional change is difficult in Canada; consequently, Québec’s autonomy has been static constitutionally. As a result, when the focus for managing autonomy is placed on constitutional negotiations, secessionism in the province strengthens. When autonomy is managed through intergovernmental agreements, secessionism weakens.

Indescribable Beings

2021 ◽  
pp. 30-70
Author(s):  
Marilisa Jiménez García
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Young People ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Picture Books ◽  
Visual Media ◽  
Spanish American ◽  
Spanish American War ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of

This chapter establishes literature for young people and school readers as prominent, visual media used by US and Puerto Rican writers, both those in the diaspora and Puerto Rico, throughout the history of the US and Puerto Rico relationship beginning in 1898 with the Spanish American War. This chapter analyzes several prominent picture books, and illustrated textbooks read in the US and PR, from a variety of authors including Ezra Jack Keats and Ángeles Pastor.

Puerto Rican Needle Workers and Colonial Migrations: Deindustrialization as Pathways Lost

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 40-54
Author(s):  
Aimee Loiselle
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Financial Stability ◽  
Linear Logic ◽  
Garment Industry ◽  
The South ◽  
Puerto Rican Studies ◽  
Puerto Rican Women ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of

The dominant narrative of U.S. deindustrialization opens with the Northeast as the definitive starting point for industry followed by a direct linear relocation to the South and then the Global South. In this framework, deindustrialization appears to have a logic, a rational pathway following cheaper and compliant labor. When Puerto Rican needleworkers become visible in the history of the textile and garment industry, however, their colonial migrations complicate deindustrialization, and its linear logic collapses. From the perspective of these colonial women, industrialization of Puerto Rico began at the turn of the twentieth century - the same time factories and mills increased in the South. Thousands of women also migrated to the Northeast mainland, especially from the 1950s to the 1970s, when many white workers were mourning the loss of textile and garment jobs. Puerto Rican women moved to the old factories of the Northeast, which had become outposts for large transnational corporations that did not relocate their manufacturing in a direct geographic path but rather spread their processes over any arrangement that offered the best cost-benefit analysis. For Puerto Rican women, employment in the plants of the Northeast during the 1960s and 1970s offered hope rather than despair, and many took pride in meeting their quotas and providing wages for their families. In the 1980s, when the Reagan administration initiated major reforms to financial policies and the practices of leveraged buyouts made closing old plants a better return on investment, Puerto Rican women mourned the loss of jobs in an industry many experts had already declared ‘dead.’ Fragmentation of the archives between Puerto Rican studies and U.S. labor history have allowed for a simplistic narrative of deindustrialization and an erasure of the losses and disappointments of women who left Puerto Rico for the promise of higher wages in the postwar Northeast mainland. When the oral histories and documents related to the migrations of Puerto Rican needleworkers become visible in the larger history of the ‘American working class’, we see deindustrialization as sprawling and contingent rather than as linear and naturalized. Puerto Rican studies scholars have written about needleworkers as part of their field with particular attention to gender as it relates to notions of motherhood, but this article sets the women as American workers into the losses of the textile and garment industry without eliding their specificity as migrating and racialized colonial labor. In addition, the women expressed grief that went beyond losing a specific job - many of these workers lost their place in the U.S. workforce and the promise of financial stability as they became associated with racialized poverty and welfare debates.

scholarly journals Natural History of Model Organisms: The big potential of the small frog Eleutherodactylus coqui

eLife ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah E Westrick ◽  
Mara Laslo ◽  
Eva Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Vocal Communication ◽  
Model Organisms ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Eleutherodactylus Coqui ◽  
Mating Call ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Habitats

The Puerto Rican coquí frog Eleutherodactylus coqui (E. coqui) is both a cultural icon and a species with an unusual natural history that has attracted attention from researchers in a number of different fields within biology. Unlike most frogs, the coquí frog skips the tadpole stage, which makes it of interest to developmental biologists. The frog is best known in Puerto Rico for its notoriously loud mating call, which has allowed researchers to study aspects of social behavior such as vocal communication and courtship, while the ability of coquí to colonize new habitats has been used to explore the biology of invasive species. This article reviews research on the natural history of E. coqui and opportunities for future research.

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