Contesting Racism in Puerto Rico

Contesting  Racism  in  Puerto  Rico   article  by  hilda  lloréns  and  isar  godreau.   Published  in  http://themedes.org/?p=3057   December  2014   racism in puerto rico In Puerto Rico, like in the rest of Latin America, anti-black racism is often denied while the myth of a racial democracy is upheld. The common argument is that in a place with a “mixed” population, wherein everyone’s ancestry is made up of “a little bit of everything” – mainly white, indigenous and black – racial difference is inconsequential. Yet everyday parlance – as well as existing patterns of residential and economic segregation – reveals the repudiation of blackness. In short, a racial hierarchy prevails in which whiteness symbolizes beauty, intelligence, and modernity. On the other hand, blackness is associated with ugliness, vulgarity, and primitivism.1 These racial-ideas have pernicious real-world consequences in the lives of Afro-descendants in Puerto Rico, and in the Americas. the project Beginning in 2004, a group of researchers and anti-racism activists working from the Institute of Interdisciplinary Research at the University of Puerto Rico-Cayey, began work on an ethnographic research project titled: “Beyond the Self: Towards an Integral Approach to an Anti-racist Pedagogy in Elementary Education.” The research team understood that school plays a central role in the early transmission of messages pertaining to race and national belonging. It is also generally in school where children first encounter racial labeling, interpersonal and institutional racism, and where they first develop awareness about their positioning vis-à-vis the existing racial hierarchy. School curricula, textbooks, posters, and school performances in which children participate can also evidence how European ancestry and associated physical characteristics are privileged. Unfortunately, Puerto Rican school personnel—principals, teachers, social workers – do not receive training as university students, or later as professionals, about how to question or counteract racism in school. More importantly, they do not learn how to support students suffering from the consequences of living in a racist society. In order to propose action strategies to combat racism, the team sought to identify manifestations of racism at the interpersonal and institutional levels, and to explore how students, school personnel, and parents experienced and understood the problem. Research was conducted in four elementary schools, and lasted six-years. During that time, the team carried out observations of classrooms, as well as extracurricular activities such as performances. Research methods included one-on-one interviews, focus groups, the analysis of textbooks and student’s drawings, administered questionnaires, and evaluated dissemination activities.2

 

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findings The study found that both teachers and students perpetrate and deal with racism regularly. Another finding is that racism manifests itself at an early age. For instance, a kindergarten teacher recounted the following incident: “When the kids came in, I was forced to change what I had originally planned to do on that day … because I was really angry. I stopped the boy in the middle of the library and decided to show… to let him see that he was black also… that the person he was rejecting was a black girl, but that he [himself] was black. Then, I told all the kids: “What color is this boy?” Then, when all of them started to tell him, “you are black also” and he said, “no.’’ And I [would say] “you are black also”…And the boy ended up crying. But, I didn’t care that he cried. It didn’t bother me, and his parents were called in for a meeting. At that moment, really I was blinded, but how could I allow such a small girl to be called ‘negra sucia’? (dirty black girl)” At the interpersonal level, 25 out of 39 teachers responded that they had intervened during a racist incident at school. The team documented several racist insults commonly leveled at black children, which include: the rejection of “black” physical traits (such as hair, skin color, lip, and ear size); accusations of bad or lacking hygiene; insults related to hyper sexuality; the rejection of class materials and toys perceived as African or black; and the questioning of whether black children are really part of their respective families and communities. The team also found that racist insults are gendered, with boys enduring more offenses pertaining to sexuality, while insults targeting girls are often related to hair or beauty.3 At the institutional level, the team found five recurrent myths about blackness and about Africa that work to sustain societal racism.4 In Puerto Rico, anti-black racism is reinforced throughout the schooling experience, and throughout a person’s lifetime. action strategies Beginning in 2009, the team began to implement strategies aimed at tackling racism in schools. The severity of the findings made apparent that offering teachers and school personnel anti-racist tools and training was a significant first step in combating racism, and promoting a just and equitable society. An anti-racist approach was needed to transcend mainstream approaches to “diversity” that by-pass issues of power – shedding light on power structures that privilege certain “normative” identities, over others deemed “different” or “marginal”. To that end, the team designed and offered anti-racist workshops to more than 45 teachers at two elementary schools, the results of which were evaluated immediately afterwards and a year later.5 The team also published a book titled “Pulling Myths from the Root: Guide for the Antiracist Teaching of Puerto Rico’s African Heritage” and a supporting web-page6, whilst it

 

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continues to collaborate with the efforts of grassroots organizations such as the Colectivo Ilé7. These efforts have been received with great enthusiasm. To date, the team has received more than forty invitations to present the book to teachers, students, and at community forums throughout Puerto Rico, as well as in the United States, the Dominican Republic, and Colombia. The presentation’s central aim is to reveal how racist practices have been taken for granted and naturalized within society, and to offer anti-racist alternatives to help audience members dismantle the effects of racism in their classrooms, communities, and homes.

author bio Hilda Lloréns PhD, is the author of Imaging the Great Puerto Rican Family: Framing Nation, Race and Gender during the American Century (2014). Dr. Lloréns teaches in the Sociology and Anthropology Department at the University of Rhode Island. Isar Godreau PhD, is the author of Scripts of Blackness: Race, Cultural Nationalism, and U.S. Colonialism in Puerto Rico (2015). Dr. Godreau is a researcher at and former director of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research at the University of Puerto Rico at Cayey.

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See:  Lloréns,  H.  2008  Brothels,  Hell  and  Puerto  Rican  Bodies:  Sex,  Race  and  Other  Cultural   Politics  in  21st  Century  Artistic  Representations.  Centro  Journal,  XX(1),  192-­‐217.  Godreau,  I.   2008    Slippery  Semantics:  Race  Talk  and  Everyday  Uses  of  Racial  Terminology  in  Puerto   Rico.  Centro  Journal,  XX(2),  5-­‐33  [↩]   See:  Godreau  I.,  et  al.,  2008    “The  Lessons  of  Slavery:  Discourses  of  slavery,  mestizaje,  and   blanqueamiento  in  an  elementary  school  in  Puerto  Rico.”  American  Ethnologist  35(1):  115-­‐ 135.  [↩]   See:  Franco  Ortiz,  M.  et  al.,  2009  “Violencia  Racista  Hacia  Niños  y  Niñas  en  la  Escuela  y   Propuestas  Hacia  la  Transformación  de  su  Auto-­‐Estigma.”  Revista  Identidades,  7,  35-­‐55.  [↩]   See:  Godreau,  I.  and  H.  Lloréns  2010  “Pulling  Up  Myths  from  the  Root:  Designing  and   Implementing  and  Anti-­‐Racist  Curriculum  about  the  African  Heritage  for  Third  Graders  in   Puerto  Rico.”  32(1):  26-­‐31.  [↩]   See:  Canabal,  I.,  et  al.,  (forthcoming  in  December  2014).  “Lecciones  de  un  Adiestramiento   Antirracista  para  Escuela  Elemental”  (Lessons  from  an  Anti-­‐racist  Training  Program  for   Elementary  School)  in  Revista  de  Ciencias  Sociales  UPR-­‐  RP  vol.  28.  [↩]   See:  http://educandocontraelracismo.webs.com/  [↩]   See:  http://colectivo-­‐ile.org/  [↩]  

     

 

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