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1 Incompresible 1 : Education in an American Puerto Rico o En búsqueda de entender lo que no se puede empaquetar 2 Lindsay Falkenberg Advised by John Bryan Starr In Political Science 240: Public Schools and Policy April 20, incompressible 2 Seeking to understand what cannot be packaged 1

2 Prologue Fitting into her schedule between a nap and a trip to the grocer, I called Bueli, my family s affectionate play on the Spanish word for grandmother, abuela. A career educator, Evelyn Dominguez Nieves taught at public and private schools in urban and rural Puerto Rico before moving my mother and her siblings to Hartford, CT in In response to increased migration from Puerto Rico to urban centers in the North East, Hartford Public Schools recruited teachers like my grandmother to serve the growing Puerto Rican student population. I called looking for a quote to cleanly open and close my paper; I should have known that nothing is quite that simple when it comes to the island Boriquen 3. We talked for an hour. Although I took pages of notes, when I read through them later, I could not identify a functional quote for my paper. I had been looking for sound bite, but Bueli s words wove the history of her home into a tapestry so complex, so tightly interlocking, so in need of the other parts of itself that no single swatch from it could be true. This was, it turns, a moment of foreshadowing. In writing this paper, I expected to find a fairly clear-cut dichotomy between oppressor and oppressed, aggressor and victim, American and Puerto Rican. But as I researched and read and wrote, everything kept getting more complex. Every page presented a new thread, and I felt that if I pulled on them, I could open this up forever. I feared that pulling on the threads would unravel my narrative. They would muddy the waters of my thesis, and I would never actually say anything. So, I resisted. I was determined to winnow, package, and present. First I restricted my axis (education), then my time period (only until 1952), then my element (vocational education). But when that was not enough, I restricted my populace (non-diasporic) and my type of vocational education (trade and industrial). When a piece of legislation coincided with a major global event, I tried to sum it up as context in a sentence or two. Ultimately, because I could not control the information, I felt I was failing. A conversation with my former high school English and creative writing teacher, a woman who has been my dear friend and writing mentor since I was 15, shifted my mindset. After reading my draft, she called and asked, Lindsay what are you trying to say with this paper? Somewhat exasperatedly, I told her I was trying to say that vocational education, like many other U.S. led programs in Puerto Rico, intended to provide only a limited empowerment, so that people would be holding up the structures that restricted them, but it just kept getting more complicated and now I m not really sure I can just say that. She replied, I think that, is your point. The problem was not that I hadn t managed to fit this history into my framework. The problem was my framework. I wanted to take a snapshot of this particular type of vocational education at this particular time in this particular place, but, just as a swatch could yield only a painfully limited insight into Bueli s quilt, my narrow lens could not capture understanding. I must think about the way an academic lens can replicate hierarchies. As I continued to narrow this paper, I consistently confronted things I had to leave out, with the things of which I could not make the reader aware, and with the specter of things of which I could never be aware because someone else had left them out before me. I don t have certain pieces of history. Columbus account of the history of the Island is not the people s. The people itself is a rhetorical, imagined, and constantly negotiated concept. The people of Puerto Rico are far from 3 A derivation of Borikén, Puerto Rico s indigenous Taíno name, which means "Land of the Valiant Lord. 2

3 monolithic. There have been racist and elitist structures functioning in Puerto Rico, and different people, even though oppressed by them, took advantage of them in different ways. I found that the development of the Island has not been a case of one-way influence from US to PR. Policies over the past 117 years have never been exclusively defined and imposed from the top down; their implementation has been negotiated and complicated by intermediate groups and the working class, including Puerto Rican elites, politicians, business people, teachers, parents, and children and their non-puerto Rican American counterparts 4. Any truth requires complex and competing histories. Through the use of footnotes, I will identify moments and pieces of information that complicated and interrupted my ability to share a succinct history. This is my attempt to make the boundaries of this paper fluid, and to provide with certain strings on which you may choose to pull. Understanding the reality of this complexity was the most valuable part of the writing process. I had attempted to fit a people into an (albeit nuanced) narrative, and it was worth seeing the ways in which my attempts were rebuffed. In light of my plan for the next two years, it was extraordinarily useful. This fall, I will be moving to a rural, low-income community in South Carolina to teach middle school Spanish through Teach for America. In order to be effective in this work, I need to understand the relationship between education, economy, and politics. In order to avoid succumbing to the soft bigotry of low expectations, I need to understand the complex forces and history at play that will make certain jobs more or less accessible to my students. I want to work with and in support of the parents, teachers, students, and community members in their efforts to transcend these forces and access that American Dream of unfettered self-determination that, since youth, we have been promised. But above all, I need to be open to continually learning how complicated the history of each place, family, and individual student will be. In some ways, I bit off more than I could chew. In other ways, this process bore great fruit, even as it did not produce what I think I needed to present. Ultimately, I was not pulling at threads haphazardly; I was finding and following new lines of stitching, lines that came from one place, went somewhere else, and irresistible as they were, brought me with them. So, dear reader, I can give you only this, a colorful and long-labored over swatch. I will not pretend it is comprehensive; to do so, I believe, would be to commit my own act of imperialism. Introduction Public schools are laboratories of citizenship and sites of state-sanctioned valuetransmission. Independence is a core American value. Thus, there is a severe contradiction between the transmission of independence as value through Puerto Rican schools and the solidification of the island s political and economic dependence on the United States. Since Puerto Ricans became U.S. citizens starting in 1917, the island and its people have existed in an intermediate state not quite a colony, but not quite autonomous; not quite subjects, but not a fully integrated citizenry. The implementation of the Operation Bootstrap industrial programs beginning in 1948 and the adoption of the Constitution of the Commonwealth in 1952 ossified this state of intermediate dependence. By promoting a value system which best served a US-centric capitalist industrial economic model, the expansion of the public school system contributed significantly to the reinforcement of development plans implemented by the U.S. colonial government even as the island transcended a strictly colonial status. Programs of vocational and industrial education exemplified this state of intermediate dependence; while they endowed participants with marketable skills and economic 4 Del Moral, Negotiating Empire, 27. 3

4 agency, they also served to stratify Puerto Ricans, relegating some to lower-skilled, lower-wage positions. Vocational education gave people the skills to exist within economic and political structures that privileged the United States national interests. Workers were empowered by an ability to participate in these economic and political systems in a way that upheld, rather than challenged them. As such, the education of Puerto Ricans parallels the education of other non-white peoples in the Continental U.S. and its controlled territories. I would also like to clarify the temporal limitations of this paper. I will only cover vocational education in Puerto Rico through the 1950s. I am holding a magnifying glass to this moment, soon after the initiation of Operation Bootstrap and the adoption of the Constitution of the Commonwealth, as a time when the current status of Puerto Rico was solidified. This was a time when things could have gone, but did not go, a different direction. While I will not cover educational developments in Puerto Rico until the present day, this mid-century period provides valuable insights into the contemporary political, economic, and education system. Puerto Rico Until 1898 It is critical, even in critiques of a colonial power, not to operate as though the history of the colonized place becomes significant only upon the colonizer s arrival. Studies of Puerto Rico are particularly susceptible to this error because the island was under colonial rule by other powers before U.S. governance. In this section, I will provide a brief background of the island s history prior to U.S. involvement. I provide this with the understanding that competing forces have affected the sources available to me to tell this history. Puerto Rico consists of an archipelago located between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of the Virgin Islands. The island s location in the northeastern Caribbean Sea has made it a highly strategic and therefore highly coveted site for military outposts since the colonization of the New World through the World Wars and today. The Island was first inhabited by a native people, the Taínos 5. They are also known by the name they gave to the island, Boriquen. Christopher Columbus of Spain arrived in 1493 and eventually enslaved the Taínos 6. Lacking in natural resources, Puerto Rico derives its wealth from agricultural production. Spain governed a monopolistic economy based primarily on sugar and, to a lesser extent, tobacco, coffee, and ginger 7. Over the next four centuries, the island served the Spanish crown. Reformist economic policies like the 1815 Cédula de Gracias (Decree of Pardon) helped create the environment required for export-commodity production. 8 Positions of economic, political, and social power were filled by those of Spanish blood, with a steady influx of mercantilists arriving directly from Spain in pursuit of increased commercial possibilities and loyalists from South America fleeing the revolts and subsequent wars of independence emerging in other Spanish colonies 9. Economic policies generated land, tax, and trade incentives for potential investors and facilitated the importation of African slaves into the colonies. Economic opportunities attracted immigrants from Europe (predominantly of Spanish and Portuguese origins), neighboring Caribbean islands (both wealthy immigrants and 5 Pico, A History of Puerto Rico, 9 6 Diffie, Porto Rico, 7 7 Diffie, Porto Rico, 10 8 Scarano, Puerto Rico 9 Diffie, Porto Rico, 9 4

5 laborers), and the United States. Thus, Puerto Rican people are an ethnic mix of black, native, and European origins 10. Though not a directly lucrative holding, Puerto Rico was an important military outpost from which Spain protected its other territories in the New World. Largely because of its strategic location, the Island was threatened at various times by Dutch, Austrian, and English forces 11. At the turn of the century, Spanish and US imperial actors competed for control of the Caribbean while Caribbean and Creole elites, reformers, and revolutionaries struggled to maintain or gain authority within each island s political hierarchy 12. Most of the wealth generated on the Island was taken by the government or by Spanish immigrant families back to Spain 13. The abolition of the slave trade and the gradual emancipation of slaves in the mid-nineteenth century undermined the profitability of sugar production and export. Coffee production subsequently increased, generating a class of free laborers and small landowners. Puerto Rico as an exporter of agricultural commodities had been dependent on the labor of slaves and the peasantry; planters found a free and independent labor force much harder to control. Creole Puerto Rican identities began to emerge and local elites began advocating for the political ideologies of separatism and colonial reform 14. A movement for autonomy arose about the middle of the nineteenth century, largely generated by successful revolutionists from former Spanish colonies in the southern continent. By the 1820s, most Spanish colonies in the Americas had broken away from the Spanish empire for economic and political motivations. The ruling class of Spanish loyalists and the Spanish government repressed, persecuted, and exiled political separatists and revolutionaries in Puerto Rico. Under this pressure, the political ideology of autonomism became the dominant political ideology of the nineteenth century. Their efforts for colonial reform called for greater local and municipal control of the Island s political and economic affairs within the context of Spanish imperial authority. The autonomists achieved the right to elect a body of deputies in In 1887 liberal reformers organized the Partido Autonomista Puertorriqueño (Puerto Rican Autonomist Party). On November 25, 1897, with its power already severely threatened in Cuba, Spain granted a Carta Autonómica (Autonomy Charter) to the island, granting it the right to establish an insular government of elected representatives 15. However, this government was only in effect for the next few months before the Spanish-American War. On April 21, 1898, Governor General Macias suspended the constitutional guarantees, on July 25 th American forces occupied parts of the island, and by October 18, forces of the United States proclaimed sovereignty and the end of Spanish rule 16. Spain and the United States signed the Treaty of Paris on December 19, 1898, providing the legal foundation for US military occupation of Puerto Rico. Providing colonial peoples access to public education was not a priority of the Spanish colonial state in the nineteenth century 17. Some Churches, private societies and clubs, municipalities, 10 Diffie, Porto Rico, 8 11 Diffie, Porto Rico, del Moral, Negotiating Empire, del Moral, Negotiating Empire, del Moral, Negotiating Empire, del Moral, Negotiating Empire, Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, del Moral, Negotiating Empire, 32 5

6 and private individuals ran educational endeavors. These were often spearheaded by Puerto Rican men educated abroad or by those of religious orders 18. There is also documentation of private schools taught by men and women of African descent teaching young children literacy and other subjects in their homes There was no formal organization of secondary or professional education during Spanish government until a royal order received on October 20, 1882 authorized the founding of the Civil Provincial Institute of Secondary Instruction Political Development Since American Occupation Through Adoption of the Constitution of the Commonwealth The People of the United States in the cause of liberty, justice and humanity come bearing the banner of freedom, inspired by a noble purpose not to make war upon the people of a country that for centuries has been oppressed but, on the contrary to bestow upon you the immunities and blessings of the liberal institutions of our government to give to all within the control of it military and naval forces the advantages and blessings of enlightened civilization -Major General Nelson A. Miles to the People of Porto Rico (1898) 21 I do not know if General Miles was in conversation with Francis Bellamy, who had composed the first version of what would become the American Pledge of Allegiance in But the language of liberty, justice, along with the use of the term freedom indicate that the US government was making many of the same promises to Puerto Ricans that it had made to US citizens. However, the government framed this promise within a very different power dynamic. Miles characterizes the occupation of Puerto Rico by the United States as an act of benevolence and also restraint. The US could have but chose not to make war upon the people. Instead, it chose to follow a noble purpose and to bestow the blessings of enlightened civilization. This self-deifying language conjures images of a merciful God taking pity on his people. The United States entertained several objectives for Puerto Rico. The Island held the promise of economic gain as a site of agricultural production, a source of cheap labor, and a market for US exports 22. Some opposed U.S. expansion as antithetical to liberal democracy. Others, largely influenced by white supremacist ideology, prescribed to a philosophy of benevolent imperialism and imagined it was the duty of the United States to govern inferior peoples. Upon occupation, the United States governed Puerto Rico under a military administration until, on April 12, President McKinley signed the Foraker Act to establish a civilian government on the Island. The new government consisted of a governor and an executive council appointed by the President, a House of Representatives with 35 elected members, a judicial system with a Supreme Court, and a non-voting Resident Commissioner in the U.S. Congress 23. It also extended the effect 18 Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, del Moral, Negotiating Empire, This knowledge complicates an image which the U.S. colonial administration later employed of Puerto Ricans as passive or empty vessels waiting to receive American educational provisions. People had agency and made their own educational opportunities. 21 Diffie, Porto Rico, 3 22 Scarano, Puerto Rico 23 Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, 126 6

7 of all federal laws of the United States to the Island. At the time, the voting population consisted of literate males age twenty-one and over 24. On the local level, a Municipal Assembly and individual boards of administration governed the municipalities of Puerto Rico for the first three decades of U.S. control. The Municipal Assembly, elected by the people every four years, held all legislative powers of the municipal government. The Mayor, whom the people also elected by popular vote, held executive power. The board of administration included a Mayor, a school director, a director of public works, a director of charities, municipal treasurer, 25 an auditor, and a Secretary 26. On March 2, 1917, the United States Congress passed the Jones Act, which accorded US citizenship to all people born on the Island of Puerto Rico. Prior to this act, Puerto Ricans had held citizenship of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rican citizenship had held no internationally recognized legal meaning; Citizens of Puerto Ricans had needed the endorsement of American authorities to travel abroad. Some foreigners living in Puerto Rico retained their citizenship of their countries of origin. Others who had traveled to the US for study or work had applied for citizenship on an individual basis. The following month, the United States entered World War I; this event highlighted the geopolitical value of Puerto Rico to the United States 27. In May 1917, the U.S. Congress approved a new Selective Service Law, under which Puerto Rican men ages twenty-one to thirty, as US citizens, were obligated to register for military service 28. Because of literacy requirements and standards for physical health, few qualified. Those who did formed the Porto Rican Regiment and were deployed to guard the Panama Canal for the duration of the war 29. To say that Puerto Ricans were granted citizenship by the Jones Act would be historically erroneous 30. It would be more accurate to say it was either achieved or imposed. Citizenship was achieved in the sense that various politicians and elites had advocated for the extension of citizenship to those born in Puerto Rico as a means of achieving equality before the law and the same legal capacity as North Americans to exercise their constitutional rights 31. Citizenship was imposed in the sense that those not accepting U.S. citizenship had to renounce it within six months or lose many of their civil and political rights, including the rights to vote and hold office 32. Jose de Diego, who is considered the Father of the Puerto Rican Independence Movement, believed this policy converted Puerto Ricans into foreigners in their own country. By accepting United States citizenship, the Puerto Rican people had abandoned their ideal of constituting their country among the free and sovereign nations of America. 33 On a broader political level, American citizenship for 24 Scarano, Puerto Rico, In smaller municipalities, the positions of school director and municipal treasurer were consolidated into one: the treasurer-school director. 26 Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, del Moral, Negotiating Empire, del Moral, Negotiating Empire, del Moral, Negotiating Empire, Solís, Public School Reform in Puerto Rico, Pico, History of Puerto Rico, de Diego, Puerto Rico, de Diego, Puerto Rico,

8 Puerto Rican peoples was a condition of having Congress authorize a fully elective legislature 34. The Jones Act regulated the political life of the Island, with few amendments, until Various political actors along the spectrum from autonomist to pro-independence had worked together as the Union Party to achieve a greater degree of self-government for Puerto Rico through the replacement of the Foraker Act In the decades that followed, was a realignment of political forces. Conservatives of the Union Party joined forces with the Republic Party 37. Dissidents of the Socialist Party organized to found the Communist Party 38. In 1922, a group of dissidents from the Union Party and young supporters of independence founded the Nationalist Party 39. The 1932 defeat of Nationalist candidates led to a split in the party as some favored a militant approach 40 and others, who preferred to continue working through electoral politics, left to join the Liberal Party 41. Out of a crisis in the Liberal Party, a union of workers, small landholders from the mountains, professionals, intellectual, owners and tenants of small sugarcane plantations, retailers, and drivers of public transport emerged 42. In 1938, they registered as the Partido Popular Democrático (Popular Democratic Party; PPD in Spanish, PDP in English) and their leader was Luis Muñoz Marín. In 1947, Congress approved an amendment to the Jones Act, making the position of Governor of Puerto Rico one of popular election. When the Popular Democratic Party won the election, Luis Muñoz Marín became Puerto Rico s first elected governor. The Popular Democratic Party included many supporters of independence who had postponed pursuit of such an agenda during World War II but who were now ready to push for it 43. Those who were of the opinion that political independence through electoral means was the first priority formed the Puerto Rican Independence Party. Muñoz Marín, who had been an independence supporter in the 1920s and 1930s, had come to believe that the issue of the Island s economy was more urgent than that of its political status 44. He feared that efforts to achieve political independence from the US would prolong economic dependence on monoculture and make the island unattractive for capital investment. Muñoz Marín saw industrialization as the imperative next step in solving the problem of chronic poverty on the Island Pico, History of Puerto Rico, Pico, History of Puerto Rico, This is another example of Puerto Ricans negotiating within their circumstances for the greatest possible gain, or for gains which were at the time their priority. 37 Pico, History of Puerto Rico, Pico, History of Puerto Rico, Over the next decade, the party mobilized on the municipal level but achieved little success in Island-wide electoral politics. 40 Relations between the militant nationalists and the police deteriorated rapidly between 1933 and 1936 (Pico 257). A violent exchange in Río Piedras in February 1936 resulted in the death of seven nationalists and the Island Police Chief. The governor of Puerto Rico initiated proceedings against nationalist leadership in Federal court, where they were prosecuted and jailed in Atlanta, GA. In 1937, a march of the National Party in Ponce turned violent and twenty-one people were killed in confrontations with the police who blocked the route. This event, known in Puerto Rican history as the Ponce Massacre, brought indignation on behalf of and attention to the plight of the nationalists. (Pico 257). While the Nationalist Party had not achieved a strong political hold, its militant character commanded attention be paid to North American cultural domination and political deficiencies. (Pico 258). 41 Pico, History of Puerto Rico, Muñoz Marín, La historia del partido Popular Democrático. 43 Pico, History of Puerto Rico, Muños Marín, Memorias 45 Muñoz Marín, Memorias 8

9 The continued militant activity of the Nationalists drove a wedge deeper between the Independentistas 46 and the Populares 47. In 1950, nationalist forces attacked a police headquarters and other government establishment, resulting in twenty-eight deaths from exchanges of gunfire. Later in 1950, nationalist forces attempted to assassinate President Truman at Blair House, 48 leaving one policeman and one nationalist dead. In 1954, three young Nationalists fired bullets in the chamber during a meeting of the U.S. House of Representatives, leaving six congressmen wounded. These acts of violence provoked disdain from across the political spectrum, strengthening support for and from parties working through electoral and democratic institutions. The association of the nationalist sectors with acts of violence made it difficult for those in the independence movement to convince people of the desirability and viability of independence 49. Leadership of the independence movement struggled to reconcile its commitment to democratic process with the associated use of armed conflict by nationalist sectors. At the same time, civic and institutional intolerance also inhibited the free exercise of political rights by the Independentistas. In the broader political climate of Puerto Rico, these realities created tensions between democracy and discrimination, between self-determination and authoritarianism. After the approval of the Jones Act, many Puerto Rican leaders in favor of greater selfgovernment saw the major obstacle as the reluctance of the United States Congress to concede greater power to the Puerto Rican people. When Congress made the office of governor of Puerto Rico an elected one in 1947, it raised expectations for more ambitious progress regarding Puerto Rico s political status. The autonomous status that the Island had very briefly held under Spain had long been understood to be a transitional position. In the context of a Puerto Rico under the United States, the model of autonomy could provide an opportunity to foster growth and consolidate political and economic institutions, after which PR could opt for independence or statehood. However, Muñoz Marín saw the model of autonomy not as a short-term transitional solution, but as a lasting political instrument 50. In 1950, Congress authorized the election of a Constituent Convention for Puerto Rico. In a referendum held on March 3, 1952, the people of Puerto Rico approved the proposed Commonwealth Constitution by a margin of 374,649 votes to 82, Puerto Rico became an Estado Libre Asociado (Free Associated State). The document established that Puerto Rico was a commonwealth of the United States and that it was bound to adhere to the United States Constitution. 52 Constitutionally and semantically without colonies, the United States controlled various incorporated territories en route to statehood and unincorporated territories protected by the principles of the Constitution 53. Puerto Rican historian Gervasio Luis Garcia astutely characterizes 46 the colloquial name for supports of the Independence movement and its affiliated parties/candidates 47 the colloquial name for supports of the Partido Popular Democrático 48 The Official states guest house for the President of the United States in Washington, DC. Truman had been staying there while the White House was being refurbished. 49 Pico, History of Puerto Rico, Muñoz Marín, Memorias 51 Pico, History of Puerto Rico, Under the Territorial Clause, Congress has the power to determine which parts of the Constitution apply to territories. The Supremacy Clause is the provision in Article Six, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution that establishes the United States Constitution, federal statutes, and treaties as "the supreme law of the land." It provides that these are the highest form of law in the United States legal system, and mandates that all state judges must follow federal law when a conflict arises between federal law and either a state constitution or state law of any state. 53 Garcia, I am the Other, 44 9

10 the island s unique position under American governance as the perpetual status of a ward who will never become part of his patron s family 54 because the American Brand of Imperialism was to create an Empire Without Colonies. There was a severe disparity between self-proclaimed American ideals, the core values underlying the American Identity as a political and rhetorical concept, and the actual practices of the United States as an imperial power. It is important to note that in the 40s and 50s, international coalitions and the newly formed United Nations were promoting and enforcing decolonization around the globe; this geopolitical develop turned attention and critique to Puerto Rico s semi-colonial status 55. As Garcia insists, the preservation of democratic principles such as liberty and equality were obvious[ly] incongruous with the capture of territories and the subjugation of their inhabitant. 56 This meant that the United States constantly had to legitimize its colonial grip on PR. Through Insular Cases of the Supreme Court in the early twentieth century, the US government carefully legislated a rationale for maintaining incorporated and unincorporated territories. These cases established that territories belonged to but were not a part of the United States. The creation of the Estado Libre Asociado (ELA) and the democratic process by which it was constituted and approved intended to demonstrate progress to the international community 57. Economic Development From American Occupation Through Operation Bootstrap In 1899, a hurricane devastated the Island, killing many and destroying the majority of the coffee groves that had been the economic life source for people living in the mountainous regions of the island 58. This brought about significant demographic shifts in the working class through emigration and urbanization. Some Puerto Ricans traveled to Hawaii, which had been recently annexed by the United States, to work in sugarcane fields and citrus groves. Others moved from the mountains to the coast of Puerto Rico, generating urban sprawls in San Juan, Ponce, and Mayaguez. The growing population spurred the development of manufacturing and services and resulted in a chronic housing shortage 59. The sugar industry expanded rapidly from 1900 to the 1920s, at which point it reached capacity to generate employment and to expand without severe ecological implications 60. Investors and individual workers looked to the tobacco industry as an alternative. Regulations imposed at the expense of traditional, home-based cigar makers 61 concentrated tobacco manufacturing in urban factories, many of which were owned by external, North American capital. 62 These tobacco factories were the first great manufacturing centers in PR and contributed greatly to the urbanization of the population and the development of urban infrastructure Garcia, I am the Other, this moment in history offers an opportunity to juxtapose the position and history of Puerto Rico with other previously colonial territories. It is important to remember that Puerto Rico as a political and cultural presence, and Puerto Rican as individuals, interacted with parts of the world besides America. 56 Garcia, I am the Other, del Moral, Negotiating Empire, Pico, History of Puerto Rico, Pico, History of Puerto Rico, Pico, History of Puerto Rico, both because these regulations introduced greater competition and also because they criminalized the production of cigars in these traditional, home-based settings. 62 Pico, History of Puerto Rico, Pico, History of Puerto Rico,

11 The Foraker Act imposed a 500-acre limit on the amount of property a corporation could own in Puerto Rico but did not set any penalties for noncompliance. It established free trade between the US and PR. The only exception was a 15% excise duty on the shipping of rum and sugar, the income from which went to the Puerto Rican treasury. The Jones Law also served to reinforce the Island s economic dependence on the US. It restricted the portion of Island-produced sugar that could be refined on the Island. It required ships used in trade between the US and PR to be registered in the US 64. The First World War reduced the spending power of traditional consumers of Puerto Rican coffee and tobacco 65. Puerto Rico s greatest natural disaster of the twentieth century, a hurricane in September 1928, flooded farms and destroyed houses in the city and countryside. At the end of 1929, the enormous tensions within the US financial structures gave way and Wall Street crashed. The US plunged into the Great Depression, and Puerto Rico went down with it. Financial facilities, public income, commercial activity, employment, private and public sector construction, and investment in the manufacturing sector fell. Puerto Rico s agrarian economy, already battered by the hurricane a year earlier, was on its knees. With the Depression in full force in the US, the escape valve of Puerto Rican emigration to the mainland ceased to qualify as a form of escape 66. Following the Great Depression and under the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the United States began to subscribe to the new Keynesian 67 liberal economic models and to apply them in the attempted economic reconstruction of Puerto Rico 68. Under this new model, the State was understood to be the principal and defining economic force; even the choice to be neutral to economic interplay was seen as a position. The way to emerge from a cycle of economic recession was not to curb government spending but to increase it. Public spending, such as through the construction of new public works, welfare, and housing projects, would fuel economic activity by putting the workers back in productive roles 69. While New Deal programs went into effect on the mainland, the US government assigned funds to Puerto Rico through PRERA, the Puerto Rican Emergency Relief Act and PRRA, the Puerto Rican Reconstruction Administration 70. It funded public projects which brought much needed employment to the island; in some towns, competition for the limited number of jobs being created resulted in violent confrontations between those who aspired to secure them 71. A 1941 Land Law legislated the literal application of the Foraker Act limiting corporation s landholdings to 500 acres. Land exceeding this limit had to be sold to the government and turned into farming cooperatives for landless laborers 72. In 1942, Puerto Rico s then-governor Rexford G. 64 Eastman and Marx, Ships and Sugar 65 Pico, History of Puerto Rico, Pico, History of Puerto Rico, Based on formulas derived from the economic thinking of John Maynard Keynes, a British economist who had challenged the premises of the classical liberal economy 68 Pico, History of Puerto Rico, Galbraith, The New Industrial State 70 Pico, History of Puerto Rico, Pico, History of Puerto Ricoi, This program was based on the Chardón Plan, named for its coordinator, University of Puerto Rico professor Carlos E. Chardón (pico 260). This was a plan for national construction drafted by various Puerto Rican figures who perceived the welfare programs to be incapable of solving the structural problems of the Puerto Rican economy in the long run. The ideas of the Chardón plan fed into the political program of the Popular Party in the 1940 electoral campaign. 11

12 Tugwell created the Economic Development Administration, known as Fomento, to promote a program of industrial development 73. The first director of Fomento created Operación Manos a La Obra, known in English as Operation Bootstrap 74, to promote industrial investment in the Island. Fomento offered tax exemptions to entice American corporations to set up factories on the Island. It also preserved and promoted Puerto Rico s low labor costs, laws allowing products to enter the U.S. duty free, and the security of operating an American-controlled territory. Hundreds of factories opened on the Island, requiring little technology but an abundant workforce. The Fomento program of industrial development radically transformed Puerto Rico s socioeconomic structure. Tens of thousands of women entered the paid job market, and industrial salaries, higher than those in agriculture, allowed workers to become homeowners. Industrial activity fueled other sectors of the economy, and commercial activity expanded. At the same time, absentee ownership arguably impeded economic prosperity and self-sufficiency. Furthermore, because the requirements of taxation were relaxed in order to attract the corporations in questions, absentee owners failed and continue to fail to contribute proportionally to the public finances of the country 75. Educational Development in Puerto Rico A. Purpose and Philosophy On October 30, 1898, a number of representative citizens met in assembly at the San Juan Theater to discuss the state and potential of public education on the island 76. The Report of the Commissioner of Education from 1900 records the resolutions adopted by this group of Island leaders. Although these resolutions had no legal standing, they served as the first public expression of the will of certain influential people in Puerto Rico on education under American governance and indicated their enthusiasm for educational reform and improvement 77. To get a sense of their mindset, it is worth teasing out the language of these resolutions. As regards public education, the best means of advancing our people would be kindergartens and normal schools as established in the United States. Our elementary and superior schools should be transformed and graded according to modern pedagogic methods Universal education should be introduced on the best models of the United States. 78 This resolution suggests the purpose of public education is one of advancement toward some conception of modernity. The use of the language our people suggests the representatives feel some degree of patriotism, though this is distinct from nationalism. The language of our people positions Puerto Ricans as somehow different and separate from Americans. However, the representatives are fully embracing the influence of the United States in regards to education. By Discussion of the plan helped to educate Puerto Rican public opinion on the merits of economic planning and the need for an integrated view of the country s problems. (Pico ). 73 Pico, History of Puerto Rico, A reference to the phrase pick ourselves up by our bootstraps, this English version is something of a misnomer. The Spanish name more closely translates to let s get to work! 75 Diffie, Porto Rico, Forward, xxx 76 Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, ; 56th Cong. S.D. 363, p

13 expressing their belief that the best method of advancing their people would be to model schools after those established in the United States and by insisting their schools adopt modern pedagogic methods, the representatives equate the United States with the modernity to which Puerto Ricans as a people aspire. They do not, however, desire just any influence from the United States. They are interested in importing the best models of the United States. Education must be obligatory and gratuitous and it must be compulsory on every municipality to sustain its own schools, the number being fixed by law with reference to the population. If the municipality be unable to support all the schools, the State should establish the necessary ones. 79 For these representatives, educational advancement is not an option: it is an obligation of the Puerto Rican people to participate in it, an obligation of the local governments to provide it, and an obligation of the State to ensure that provision. This suggests a social contract in which the people and the government must each uphold their side of the bargain for the communal advancement of the Island as a people aspiring toward modernity. General Guy V. Henry made one of the first official utterances on the subject of public education after the American occupation. Addressing the council of secretaries regarding the hiring of teachers for the new municipal schools, he stated: It is my desire to ascertain how many teachers they (the municipalities) can pay, who can teach the American or English language, commencing with the younger children. It is believed that those who can speak English only can accomplish the purpose by object lessons. It is thought that American women for teaching can be obtained for fifty dollars a month in gold, and they are well worth it If [the municipalities] can report to me how many teachers they can so employ, they will be brought from the United States and sent to these towns. 80 This language is highly economic. General Henry s interest in commencing with the younger children suggests a desire for efficiency and to achieve the greatest return on investment in the people of the Island as possible. The American female teachers are highly commodified in his address. They can be obtained, brought, and sent. Furthermore, in keeping with the desire for efficiency and a high return on investment, General Henry assures the council of secretaries that the American teachers are well worth their price. This quote demonstrates the way in which economics was both a motivation and a methodology in the establishment of public education in Puerto Rico. The U.S. government also intended for colonial schools to serve as models for efficient administration 81. They also served as an engine for the transformation of colonial subjects 82. After the United States gained control of Puerto Rico from Spain in 1898, the government was entirely explicit about its agenda of Americanization through public schooling. Author Aida Negrón de Montilla, who has conducted one of the most comprehensive studies of this process and its effect on public education in Puerto Rico, defined Americanization as the intention to displace a native Puerto Rican culture 79 Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, ; 56th Cong. S.D. 363, p Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, ; 56th Cong. S.D. 363, p del Moral, Negotiating Empire, del Moral, Negotiating Empire, 45 13

14 with an American one or the assimilation of Puerto Rican culture into the dominant US culture 83. This was demonstrated through the teaching of U.S. history (with American patriots in place of their Puerto Rican equivalents), the daily ritual of singing the national anthem, and the celebration of U.S. patriotic holidays and parades 84. Martin Brumbaugh, Puerto Rico s first commissioner of education under the United States, defined Americanization as the transmission of U.S. spirit and ideals and the inculcation of patriotism, which he saw as a devotion to and enthusiasm for the United States 85. For Commissioner Samuel M. Lindsay, it meant the implantation of American institutions in the Hispanic-American understanding. For both officials, schools were fundamental instruments of this process 86. Assistant Commissioner of Education Carey Hickle declared that with the Jones Act of 1917, the chief business of the school is to produce good citizens. 87 The first Puerto Rican was appointed commissioner of education was Juan B. Huyke. In 1921, his first statement issued to the teachers of Puerto Rico, asserted that our schools are agencies of Americanism and charged them with the creating in our youth [of] a spirit of loyalty and a true love for our American flag and for all American institutions, in order to induce Puerto Ricans to feel, think and act as Americans. 88 Americanization had multiple meanings and intentions. For the purposes of this paper, I will focus on Americanization 89 specifically as it relates to the political and economic status of the island, rather than to the imported or influenced cultural and social practices (though these elements cannot be cleanly compartmentalized). Ultimately, the Puerto Rican public school system served to reinforce development plans of the US government. Through public school reform, the US and Puerto Rican governments adapted the education system to best complement their economic and political intentions for the Island 90. The United States needed to develop programs and a rationalization for each activity of its development plan. In order to legitimize its presence on the Island, the US worked to foster an appreciation for the improvements in lifestyle under their governance 91. The government also worked to develop in Puerto Ricans the skills that would best serve US national strategic economic and political interests. B. Structure and Governance. Although many of the Island s leaders had made known their desires for a high-quality, compulsory, and gratuitous public education at their October meeting, actual construction and modification of the existing school system required action by the government. On May 1, 1899 General Guy V. Henry appointed Dr. John Eaton, formerly United States Commissioner of Education, to the position of chief of the newly formed Bureau of Education. Eaton investigated the existing school system. After finding it to be disorganized and without ideological, legal, or 83 Negrón de Montilla, La Americanización 84 Negrón de Montilla, La Americanización 85 Solís, Public School Reform, Solís, Public School Reform, del Moral, Negotiating Empire, Negrón de Montilla, La Americanización, though here is another thread you may pull on 90 Solís, Public School Reform, Solís, Public School Reform, 70 14

15 functional consistency, he compiled a set of laws, The School Laws of 1899 to establish a system of school districts by town and barrio to be governed by locally elected school boards 92. This initial system of local governance of schools failed. This may have been because the law urged the districts to organize and establish public schools, but it did not mandate that they do so. Polarizing local politics also contributed to the school boards negligence in performing their duties 93. The lack of existing local democratic infrastructure may also have contributed to the failure of this attempt to transplant, rather than adapt, the American school system to Puerto Rico 94. The failure of local school boards to perform their duties spurred a process of centralization in the administration of education. The newly established Insular Board of Education gradually adopted the duties of delinquent local school boards. The president of the Insular Board appointed teachers and rented rooms for public schools wherever the municipalities failed to do so. Thus, while the initial permissive-rather-than-mandatory system of local control failed to establish the social contract sought by the Puerto Ricans leaders at their initial October meeting, the government s responsibility to provide public education to the people of Puerto Rico was acknowledged by and through the process of administrative centralization. The Foraker Act of 1900 stipulated that public schooling come under the close jurisdiction and control of the U.S. government 95. It created the position of Commissioner of Education to be appointed by the President of the United States for a term of four years. Because the Commissioner was a member of both the executive and the legislative branches of the government, he was in a position to propose and approve legislation 96. Dr. George G. Groff 97 served as the first Commissioner of Education, followed by Dr. M. G. Brumbaugh who took charge of the office on August 6, Dr. Brumbaugh prepared the school law known as An Act to Establish a System of Public Schools in Puerto Rico, which was approved by both houses of the legislature on January 31, The Act centralized the administration of schools and gave the Commissioner of Education almost unlimited power over all matters related to teachers, curriculum, organization, and administration of education on the Island 99. For Goff and Brumbaugh, this centralization was entirely necessary. According to Goff, The School Laws of 1899 demonstrated a complete dearth of understanding of Puerto Rico s people and their needs. He saw them as an attempt by Dr. Eaton, who he insisted was only on the Island three months and made but one trip outside of the capital, to transplant the school system of Massachusetts to Puerto Rico. Brumbraugh also insisted it was the government s duty to centralize the administration of schools for the good of Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican people. In the 1900 Report of the Commissioner of Education, he stated the department does not covet power, but it is willing to assume power when by doing so it can give security to worthy teachers and the best instruction to the pupils Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, del Moral, Negotiating Empire, The second President of the Insular Board of Education (Osuna 137). 98 Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, Solís, Public School Reform, Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico,

16 Until 1920, instruction in elementary school subjects was given in three kinds of schools: rural, graded (urban), and night schools. The rural schools generally offered only the first four years of instruction. The graded schools offered an eight-year course. The night schools offered instruction mostly in the first few grades to children who worked and were unable to attend school during the day or to illiterate young adults 101. The curriculum of the schools was almost directly adopted from schools of the United States, including History, Civics, and Geography; Nature Study; Physiology and Hygiene; and Physical Education 102. There was a heavy focus on English as the language of instruction. Secondary education, for which there was a much lower demand, developed much more slowly. Higher and professional educational opportunities were limited, and qualifying students usually studied at universities in the United States 103. In 1920, 15% of the total population and 44.8% of the school age population (age 6-18) was attending school of any kind. By 1945, 17% of the total population and 55% of the school age population was attending school 104. The educational system had expanded to include elementary rural schools, second unit (intermediate or upper) rural schools, rural junior high schools, elementary urban schools, urban junior high schools, senior high schools, and some specialized schools. The curriculum now included the slightly repackaged subjects of Social Science, Elementary Science, Health Education, and Physical Training 105. Vocational and Industrial Education A. Development in Puerto Rico The closest thing to vocational education existing in Puerto Rico under Spanish governance was a professional school established in San Juan in 1883 for the preparation of surveyors, builders, commercial and industrial agents, and engineers. In 1886, the city established a trade school to further train workmen in their particular fields. Both institutions closed after a short time due to low enrollment 106. In 1896, the colonial government established a trade school in the same building as an orphan school and insane asylum, at which most instruction centered on craft. 107 Boys were admitted after examination on the subjects of elementary school instruction, and a separate branch of training offered nightly classes in drawing to women. Total attendance in these programs for was 312 students. From the American occupation through 1930, no formal system of vocational education existed on the Island 108. The vocational subjects of manual training, home economics, agriculture, and industrial arts were taught as optional special subjects in the curriculum of some schools. In 1901, Minnesota Senator Knute Nelson introduced a bill known as S-2031 to encourage industrial education in the Territories and Islands. Congress did not act on this bill, nor S-2030, its companion bill, to encourage industrial education in several states of the Continental United States. In 1923, Congress also did not act on a bill proposed by then-resident Commissioner Córdova- 101 Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, typesetting, carpentry, mechanics, bookbinding, tailoring, chemical industries, shoemaking, masonry, model-making, sculpture, lithography, and the manufacture of tobacco (osuna 120). 108 Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico,

17 Dávila to extend the benefits of the Smith-Hughes Act (the Federal vocational legislation) to Puerto Rico. 109 In 1930, then-governor of Puerto Rico Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. asked the Federal Board for Vocational Education to make a survey and report on the needs for vocational education in Puerto Rico. The Federal Board approved the request and authorized the survey to be completed by Dr. J.C. Wright and Mr. Frank Cushman, respectively Director and Chief of the Industrial Education Service. Their report announced: We are of the opinion that an efficient program of vocational education, if properly organized and extended so as to cover the principal occupations and pursuits carried on in the Island with facilities for offering it to the majority of those who need it would contribute materially to improving the economic conditions of Puerto Rico and the welfare of its people. 110 The language of this quote again displays economics as both a motivation and methodology for education. The authors suggest vocational education would improve the economic conditions of the people but also insist it be done in an economical way, one that would be efficient and properly organized. If there were to be a program of vocational education and if the nation s investment in it were going to yield the greatest return, it would need to be tailored to match the principal occupations and pursuits carried on in the Island. It must also be able to adequately accommodate demand to serve the majority of those who need it. In our opinion, the need for vocational education in Puerto Rico is so urgent that it merits the very careful consideration of the Congress since the people living in Puerto Rico are citizens of the United States and can seek outside help from no other source. 111 This is a clear reference to the social contract between government and people, with real responsibilities on the part of the United States. The authors pointedly remind Congress that the people living in Puerto Rico are citizens of the United States, and that by occupying the Island and incorporating its people into the nation, the American government is responsible for the well-being of Puerto Ricans, for they can seek outside help from no other source. The survey and report focused on vocational education in three areas: agriculture, trade and industries, and home economics. Because I am mainly focusing on vocational education in the context of industrialization, I will focus on vocational education in trade and industries. 112 I have separated out the authors findings 113 in order to offer my thoughts on their specific implications. a. It would provide opportunities for youths and adults to learn a skilled trade. This suggest a power of vocational education to empower Puerto Ricans with a sense of personal advancement and potential to contribute to society in meaningful ways. 109 Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, Another thread, and another place where I chose to winnow. 113 Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico,

18 b. It would provide an opportunity for boys and girls to learn to work efficiently in an industrial occupation and thereby to earn a better wage This language emphasizes the need for the youth of Puerto Rico to become familiar and comfortable with industrialized environments and occupations. Since that is the direction the Island is headed, the only way to advance economically is to learn to work effectively in those environments and occupations. c. It would bring about cooperation between the schools, employers, and workers. The authors aspiration for further integration between the education system and economic system on the Island. This implies their purposes and goals are closely related if not synonymous. d. It would provide one of the indispensable elements in a successful program of industrial development in Puerto Rico, i.e. skilled workers. Here is another example of economics as motivation and methodology; the authors recognize that skilled workers are a necessary input for a program of industrial development, and vocational education is a way to produce them. e. It would increase the economic wealth of the island through the development of human resources. This would imply increased purchasing power on the part of the workers. This suggests skilled workers are important not only as producers but also as consumers. Increased purchasing power results in increased consumption of goods. Thus, skilled Puerto Rican workers would aid in the production of goods and in the development of a market for their consumption. f. It would tend to reduce unemployment because new capital would be attracted to the Island for the development of new industries. Skilled workers are an investment in the long-term development of the island insofar as they brighten the economic landscape for potential investors. A supply of sufficiently skilled labor provides an infrastructure of human resources upon which to further industrial development. g. It would tend to develop local leadership in industry as a result of giving the native Puerto Rican a chance to get ahead in industry and qualify for supervisory and managerial positions. This finding suggests one part of the goal of U.S. involvement in Puerto Rico is to help the people achieve some degree of self-sufficiency. However, I understand the supervisory and managerial positions mentioned to be within existing firms and industries. This demonstrates the attempt of the United States to empower Puerto Ricans to become active participants in preferred economic systems, and to strengthen rather than challenge such systems. However, the words themselves, supervisory and managerial imply a position within an existing structure, rather than a sense of ownership; this preparation would empower Puerto Ricans to support rather than challenge existing political and economic structures. The authors made a convincing enough argument. On March 3, 1931, the Congress of the United States extended the benefits of Federal vocational legislation (the Smith-Hughes Act) to the 18

19 Island of Puerto Rico, initiating the organization of vocational education in accordance the law s philosophy and standards 114. Vocational education developed for agriculture, home economics, and the industrial arts. Again, I will focus on vocational Trade and Industrial Education. Day, evening, and part-time classes were offered. During World War II, the Vocational Training Program for War Production Workers was established so that students could construct air and naval bases and military camps in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean 115. Vocational education developed in response to the growing needs of a Puerto Rico in transition under Operation Bootstrap 116. Furthermore, since population growth increased emigration from the Island to the mainland United States, vocational education was also a way to prepare Puerto Rican emigrants for factory jobs in American urban centers 117. Between 1940 and 1945, more than 37,000 workers enrolled in classes of vocational Trade and Industrial Education. 8,146 completed the training satisfactorily 118. The majority of those who dropped out did so because they found employment before the completion of their training. B. Implications of Vocational Education It is reasonable for the government to work to provide its citizens with the skills necessary to make a living and to support themselves and their families. It is reasonable for the government to provide routes to degrees and training programs that will prepare students to directly enter the job market qualified for available jobs. What is worth questioning is when the major economic decisions that affect the availability and type of jobs are made by a government in which the affected people are not represented, when the government s interests do not align with and in some cases are explicitly in conflict with those of the affected people, and when the vast majority of profits and taxes on profits do not benefit the people or their communities. The complicating issue is the subordinate role played by the people of Puerto Rico in the decisions made about the organization and development and the subordinate roles made available to them within those developed organizations 119. Puerto Rican historian Fernando Pico concluded: The school system, far from guaranteeing equal opportunities to all, erected sharp divisions between those who could gain access to employment in commerce, municipal bureaucracies, printing presses, and more skilled occupations and those who were condemned to swing an ax and a hoe, to bend under the sun of the sugar plantations, or to serve a life sentence in a humid coffee plantation. Two different types of instruction, schooling and the school of life, two cultures, one increasingly refined and European, and the other ever more dehumanizing and disenfranchised. 120 The United States engaged in the complementary processes of national consolidation and empire building. The government put some acquired territories on the path to joining the United States as incorporated territories. Others, which would remain colonies of the empire, were held 114 Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, 419, Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, Laguerre, Vocational Education in A Land of Hope in Schools, Laguerre, Vocational Education in A Land of Hope in Schools, Osuna, A History of Education in Puerto Rico, however, as I will show in the following sections, there are ways in which admission and completion of a vocational education did not warrant subordination, but did serve as method of self-empowerment and negotiation of one s circumstances. 120 Pico, Educación y sociedad, 9 19

20 as unincorporated territories. The U.S. decided which path each territory would enter based on perceived and imagined cultural differences between those which were imagined to fit into the nation and those which were not 121. The government intended different territories and different peoples to play different roles in the nation s government, citizenry, and industry. It used multiple types of schools to pursue these different intentions, to train individuals and communities to occupy their designated class, gender, and racial positions within the hierarchical political, economic, and social structures of U.S. society Education and schooling were part of both imperialist and nationalist projects; they provided non-white peoples of the U.S. and its territories with the training necessary to become contributing, though not equal, members of U.S. society 124. Government and academic racial representations and characterizations of Puerto Ricans, while somewhat varied, were almost exclusively presented as part of a broader narrative of paternalistic colonialism. Mary Renda, in her case study of U.S. occupation in Haiti, characterized paternalism as an assertion of authority, superiority, and control expressed in the metaphor of a father s relationship with his children 125 A similar narrative allowed the U.S. government to justify its tutelary form of government in Puerto Rico as a necessary intervention, a form of benevolent leadership when juxtaposed with the negligent, bad parenting of the Spanish colonial government 126. The United States promised to be a progressive, sympathetic parent guiding Puerto Rico into modernity 127. Characterizations of Puerto Ricans as black or mulatto and more docile than Filipinos or Cubans were influenced by and upheld the idea that the Island should remain a territory of the United States; Puerto Ricans were seen as pliable colonial subjects with the potential to be transformed at the hand of the United States into productive members of the nation. Americanization and the colonial school project reflect the US government s racial characterizations of Puerto Ricans as well as its political intentions for a long-term relationship with the Puerto Rican territory and its people 128. Even though they were perceived to be racially different from Americans 129 and could not shed this characteristic, they, like other nonwhites in the United States, could be improved through what del Moral calls limited and quantified racial uplift via education. 130 C. Relationship to Education of Other Non-white Peoples in Continental U.S. and Its Controlled Territories In commenting upon the qualification of potential Puerto Rican voters, Military Governor General George W. Davis stated: 121 del Moral, Negotiating Empire, Smith, Civic Ideals 123 These forces are so intersectional. In this paper, I have only begin to parse out those related to race and class. 124 del Moral, Negotiating Empire, Renda, Taking Haiti, Miller, Historia de Puerto Rico, del Moral, Negotiating Empire, del Moral, Negotiating Empire, as noted a the beginning of this paper, the Puerto Rican population was composed of people of a variety of racial and ethnic compositions, mostly indigenous, European, and African. Therefore, the ethnic makeup of many Puerto Ricans was very similar to the ethnic makeup of many American. Puerto Ricans and American populations are extremely diverse. Thus, the difference was imagined through political and racial discourse and rhetoric. 130 del Moral, Negotiating Empire, 44 20