There are many views and opinions on the race associated with the Puerto Rican people. It seems as if these views cause a lot of frustration towards many people. Understanding a culture that has been made up by different races is somewhat hard to explain to the outsider. It is something that for many cannot be understood and for others it cannot be explained.
Conducting research is the only way that you can try to find out concrete information on what really happened in a certain time period. For some it has been a struggle to be able to find out information that clearly states what really happened in the past. We must conduct the research required to get the information we desire regarding the subject we are interested in.
Coming up with a thesis question and trying to get the right information is a hard task, especially when you are looking at books that have their own opinions on it.
In this historical essay, I have reviews the following three books which have given a great understanding to my questions.
The first book that I reviewed was by Isar P. Godreau, Scripts of Blackness: Race, Cultural Nationalism, and U.S. Colonialism. Her view of the different races in Puerto Rico and how they became one. Her book was a focus on a housing project in Ponce, Puerto Rico as well as her own experience as a Puerto Rican woman who was not a white Puerto Rican.
Her book takes us on a journey to Ponce, a port town in Puerto Rico that has a lot of Afro-history, though many of the towns people do not agree. She explains the racism in the town between a housing project and an urbanization which means a “richer” housing project in Puerto Rico. Although both of these places are within feet of each other the people in the housing project were looked at as blacker then anyone around them. They are viewed like this by people in the urbanization although you can find light skinned, brown skinned, and black people in both locations. Godreau’s views are an important because people need to know the way that people who are within feet of each other view others because of their skin color, as well as where they live. Isar Godreau and Jay Kinsbruner are similar because of the way they are trying to come to a conclusion on why there is so much racism on an island that is ultimately made up of three different races to make one.
The second author that I reviewed was Jay Kinsbruner, Not of Pure Blood: The Free People of Color and Racial Prejudice in Nineteenth Century Puerto Rico. Kinsbruner used the very popular misconception that racial discrimination has largely not existed in Puerto Rico. His book shows that racism has long had a horrible effect on the Puerto Rican society. His book focuses on the free people of color. He studies the people who are of African descent who were considered non-white but were free during slavery. He considers the many consequences that racism has done to the island of Puerto Rico and the people who live there. The author suggests that racism continues to be a challenge for people of color.
Kinsbruner describes residential patterns, marriages, births, deaths, occupations, and family and household matters to demonstrate that free people of color were a disadvantaged. He speaks about the contradictions of Puerto Rican racial prejudice and discrimination, explains the shade discrimination. He felt that Puerto Rican racial equality is a myth.
The third author that I reviewed was Francisco A. Scarno, Congregate and Control: The Peasantry and Labor Coercion in Puerto Rico Before the Age of Sugar 1750-1820. The third book I reviewed on my quest to find the right books to incorporate into my thesis paper was different then the first two. The reason behind this was because Scarno adds a different perspective on why there actually is so much racism in Puerto Rico in a different light. His view was the way the Spaniards used the up and coming sugar and cane industry to reach out not only to white people to migrate to Puerto Rico but for freed people of color to migrate their as well. The island of Puerto Rico was opened ultimately for anyone to come that had the means to get to the island because they would be given free land. The increase in the sugar and cane production helped the rise of Puerto Rico but the freed black people and the slaves that had a lot to do with the production of it were rarely ever recognized.
Isar Godreau, Jay Kinsbruner, and Francisco Scarno all have very similar ideas in trying to uncover the mystery of why there is so much racism in Puerto Rico. Their views are all different, yet they bring to light the same answer on why such racial discrimination on an island that obviously has African descent.
Originally published 15.10.2019