Negotiating Empire: The Cultural Politics of Schools in Puerto Rico, 1898-1952

244 Pages·2013·1.397 MB·English

by  Solsiree del Moral

Negotiating Empire

Negotiating Empire
The Cultural Politics of Schools in
Puerto Rico, 1898–1952
Solsiree del Moral
The University of Wisconsin Press
Publication of this volume has been made possible, in part, through support from the
Anonymous Fund of the College of Letters and Science at the University of Wisconsin–
Madison and from the Department of History at the Pennsylvania State University.
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The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Del Moral, Solsiree.
Negotiating empire : the cultural politics of schools in Puerto Rico, 1898–1952 /
Solsiree del Moral.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN978-0-299-28934-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN978-0-299-28933-1 (e-book)
1. Puerto Rico—History—1898–1952. 2. Puerto Rico—Colonial influence. 3. Education—
Puerto Rico—History. 4. Americanization—History. I. Title.
F1975.M59 2013
972.9505´2—dc23
2012017511
To the teachers of Puerto Rico, on the Island and in the Diaspora

Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Hacer patria 3
chapter 1 The Politics of Empire, Education, and Race 24
chapter 2 El magisterio (the Teachers) 58
chapter 3 Citizenship, Gender, and Schools 91
chapter 4 Testing for Citizenship in the Diaspora 120
chapter 5 Parents and Students Claim Their Rights 150
Conclusion: Education, Nation, and Empire 178
Notes 185
Bibliography 203
Index 217

Illustrations
Figures
“School Begins,” January 1898 37
“Uncle Sam’s New Class in the Art of Self-Government,” August 1898 41
“America’s Greatest Gift to Porto Rico—the Public School, Caguas,” ca.
1900 46
La escuela del maestro Cordero, Francisco Oller, 1891 61
Celestina and maestro Rafael 67
Celestina as burden to maestro Rafael 68
“Directiva de la Asociación Local de Maestros” (The advisory board of the
local teachers’ association), 1925 78
“Hermanos Irizzary” (The Irizarry brothers), 1925 99
Schoolchildren dancing a minuet in Carolina, Puerto Rico, 1927 110
Racial types, 1926 136
“Porto-Rican boy,” 1926 139
A schoolroom in a rural school, Cidra, Puerto Rico, January 1938 159
Children coming home from school on a road near Manatí, Puerto Rico,
December 1941 168