How Collaborative Action Research is Advancing the Fight Against Racism in Puerto Rico

Book cover. Anti-racism curriculum in Puerto Rico. Photo courtesy Hilda Lloréns

The pioneering textbook Arrancando Mitos de Raíz: Guía para una Enseñanza Antirracista en Puerto Rico (Pulling-up myths by their roots: A guide for the anti-racist teaching of Puerto Rico’s African heritage) was published in early 2013. Written in accessible and clear language and complete with practical exercises, it is intended to assist in educating teachers, university students, social workers, educational policy makers, and generally anyone interested in combating racism in Puerto Rico. This book is the result of an applied anthropology and interdisciplinary social-science research project entitled, “Beyond the Self: Towards an Integral Approach to an Anti-racist Pedagogy in Elementary Education,” funded by the National Institutes of Health. Spearheaded by Isar Godreau, a leading race scholar and former director of the Institute of Interdisciplinary Research at the University of Puerto Rico at Cayey, the initial field research phase took place over a six-year period (2004-09). A multi-disciplinary team, composed by anthropologists, psychologists, anti-racist community organizers, and a performance/theater professional, carried out this research. They conducted observations, focus groups, interviews, questionnaires, textual, discourse, and visual analysis at two elementary schools, one in Cayey and another, in Arroyo, PR. They sought to answer: (1) whether institutional racism was embedded within school curricula (ie, in textbooks, lessons, and extracurricular activities); and (2) whether children who exhibited “black” physical features were routinely exposed to racism and discrimination in school.

Project collaborators. From right to left: Hilda Lloréns, María Reinat Pumarejo, Isar Godreau, Sherry Cuadrado, Mariluz Franco, Jessica Gaspar and Inés Canabal. Photo courtesy Hilda Lloréns

Findings from the study—parts of which have been published in various journals—revealed that racism was pervasive in schools. At the institutional level, we found that curricular materials and lessons taught students five recurrent and specific myths about Africa, the African heritage, and blackness in Puerto Rico. These five myths are: (1) Africa is a poor, primitive place of little importance in the world; (2) slaves were passive victims of slavery; (3) all black persons in Puerto Rico were slaves prior to the abolition of slavery; (4) the contributions of our African heritage are limited to music, folklore and hard labor; (5) in Puerto Rico, the majority of black persons disappeared as a result of race mixing or mestizaje.

At the interpersonal level, racial discrimination among students included the rejection, humiliation, mockery, and even physical abuse of children who exhibited “black features.” There was widespread rejection of physical traits associated with blackness, specifically as it related to hair, skin color, and lip shape. There were also clear gender dimensions associated with particular traits. For example, “black hair” is a common target of ridicule for girls, while insults related to hyper-sexuality (eg, bellaco/horny), are common for boys. Consequently, we found that students who are victims of racism experience emotional instability, anxiety, and isolation. Students often begin to experience racial discrimination in elementary school and continue to encounter racism throughout the entirety of their schooling experience. These on-going aggressions lead to feelings of marginality, low self-esteem, dropping out of school, and even in engaging in self-destructive behavior such as taking drugs. Teachers, social workers, and parents reported during the interviews that other consequences of racism involved acting-out, misbehaving, getting in trouble with school authorities, and ultimately getting expelled from school.

We found that although well intended, teachers and other school personnel are inadequately prepared to confront and handle incidents of racism in school. For example, while 83% of the teachers surveyed agreed that racism exists in Puerto Rico, 73% also said that children do not experience the effects of racism in schools. These answers directly contradict qualitative findings in which teachers’ repeatedly recount incidents of racism in their classrooms and in their schools. Similarly, when surveyed about physical appearance, 50% of children in one third-grade classroom said things such as: “I would like to change my eye color because I want to have green eyes instead of brown;” “I have curly and ugly hair and I don’t like my hair, I like straight hair (pelo lacio);” “I’d like to change my nose, so that I can have a straight nose (nariz perfilada);” and, “I would like to have white skin.”

The applied nature of the project called for the development of strategies to tackle racism. During the second, action-oriented phase of the project (2009-13), which was funded by the Fundación Puertorriqueña de las Humanidades, the team expanded to include collaborators with expertise ranging from pedagogical plan development and teacher training, performance/theater, African music and mathematics. During this phase the team organized and carried out teacher trainings and workshops during which exercises now included in the textbook were first developed and piloted. This phase also included writing and revising the textbook.

The objectives of the textbook include the fostering of pride about African heritage, to promote positive attachment to blackness and the African heritage among school age children, to build a critical consciousness around the ways in which blackness has historically been associated with inferiority and whitenesss with superiority, and to help diminish the effects of racism among students. To achieve these goals the book offers (1) definitions of racism and examples of its manifestations in Puerto Rico and in the school context; (2) alternative and positive messages to counteract the existing myths (detailed above); (3) practical dialogues offering concrete examples and tools to respond to racism in real-world situations; (4) an annotated list of resources for teachers including readings, stories, films and videos, websites, and other resources about the themes developed throughout the text; (5) curricular suggestions for developing positive lessons about Africa, as well as a model for a Mathematics and Spanish lesson plan; and (6) practical recommendations and resources for confronting interpersonal racism.

Finally, this research project and the publication of the textbook led to the 2013 founding of the collective Movimiento para una Educación Antirracista (MovEA), which is open to anyone interested in combating racism in Puerto Rico. Its goals are to establish a nationally recognized working agenda and a network of organizations and people committed to promoting racial equality and justice (more information can be found here).

Hilda Lloréns is visiting assistant professor in the Ethnic Studies program at Brown University. Currently, she is at work on her book, Sentinels of Colonial Modernity: Artistic and Photographic Representations of Puerto Rico during the American Century.

Please send any comments, suggestions, and ideas for future columns to SLACA AN Contributing Editor Ronda Brulotte at brulotte@unm.edu.

via Anthropology-News http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2013/06/17/how-collaborative-action-research-is-advancing-the-fight-against-racism-in-puerto-rico/