Dr. Carmen Sanjurjo, Metropolitan State University of Denver

1. Multicultural Education in Puerto
Rico
Multiculturalism in the Island of
Enchantment

2. Multicultural Education in Puerto Rico
• http://www.coedu.usf.edu/culture/Puerto_Rico.h
tm (after I googled Multicultural Education in
Puerto Rico this is what showed up)
• The Care Guide: Culture, Ability, Resilience and
Effort:
• http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/CAREguide2011
.pdf
• Worksheets:
– Worksheet #1: Features of Culture
– Worksheet #2: Everyone has a culture-everyone is
different

3. Diversity in Puerto Rico
• Gender
• Sexual Orientation
• Race and Ethnicity
• Immigration
• Language
• Age
• Social Class and Status
• Regions
All the above, and other cultural features, are connected to identity
and to who we are. They are evident in our history, in our culture and
in our institutions of learning : from pre-k to higher education.

4. Race and Ethnicity in Puerto Rico
• Brief Explanation of Ethnicity and Race in
Puerto Rico:
– Tainos
– Spaniards
– Africans
– Other Europeans
– Cubans
– Dominicans and other Caribbean immigrants

5. Social Class and Status
• Poverty levels in Puerto Rico:
– Access to excellent education
– Access to higher education
– Job and career opportunities
• Puerto Rico, Unemployment rate
•Vieques17.0%
(Aug 2013)
•Puerto Rico14.7%
(Oct 2013)
•San Juan10.3%
(Aug 2013)

6. Social Class and Schools
• The Puerto Rican dropout problem appears to be
especially severe for young students, those at the
7th and 8th grade levels. Whereas high school
dropout rates appear to be no higher for Puerto
Rico than for the average of the 50 states (and
thus significantly better than for many individual
states), the dropout rate in Puerto Rico for pre-
high school students appears to be higher than in
almost all states. Overall, then, from the 6th
grade to high school graduation, Puerto Rico is
below all or virtually all of the states in its ability
to engage and retain students.

7. Social Class and Schools
continue:
• Extremely high dropout rates before the mid-
1990s have left a legacy of adults without high
school degrees. Forty percent of adults over
24 lack a high school degree, significantly
higher than in any state.

8. Educational Attainment in Puerto Rico

9. “The Revolving Door Migration”
The Puerto Rican presence has been felt since the early 1900s; when
President Woodrow Wilson on March 2, 1917 signed the Jones Act, Puerto
Ricans were granted American citizenship along with the freedoms outlined in
the United States constitution ((City University of New York. Puerto Rican
Voters.2004. http://www1.cuny.edu/portal_ur/content/voting_cal/puerto_ric
an.html (accessed 4 24, 2010)
The first migration was during the 1900–1945, at which time the pioneers,
who were also called los pioneros, arrived. However the greatest influx came
in during the Great Migration period (1946–1964). Estimates are that more
than one million Puerto Ricans migrated during this period ((Latino Education
Network Service. History. 2010. http://palante.org/History.htm (accessed 4
25, 2010)

10. Puerto Rican migration slowed down by the 1960s and a “revolving
door” pattern emerged: a back-and-forth flow of people between the
island and the mainland as opposed to a larger migration to the States.
There have been occasional periods during the recessions of the late
1970s in which the migration to the States was increased. In the late
1980s Puerto Rico began facing social problems including rising violent
crime (especially drug-associated crime), increased overcrowding, and
worsening unemployment. The conditions stabilized the flow of
migration into the United States across all socioeconomic groups and
led many Puerto Ricans to remain on the mainland ((Every
Culture. Puerto Rican
Americans. 2010.http://www.everyculture.com/multi/Pa-Sp/Puerto-
Rican-Americans.html (accessed 4 25, 2010)

11. “La Guagua Aerea”
The Air Bus
• Puerto Ricans on the “Guagua Aerea”

12. Our Boricuas in the US
http://diasporapuertorriquena.weebly.com/gal
eriacutea.html

13. • The Puerto Rican flag is draped across the
crown of the Statue of Liberty on Oct. 25,
1977, after demonstrators occupied the
monument.
http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-
photo/rights-managed/BE066091/puerto-
rican-flag-on-statue-of-liberty

14. Vieques – Hunger Striker Protests Test
Bombing! Nov. 2000
http://www.vvawai.org/archive/interventions/
vieques-protest.html

15. Language Issues
in Puerto Rico
English as Language of Instruction
Spanish as Language of Instruction
ESL: Do we have enough teachers to teach ESL?
SSL: Do our teachers have the skills?
Spanish: islanders vis-à-vis Puerto Ricans living in
the United States or coming from the U.S.

16. Instituto de Cultura Puertorriquena
Institute of Puerto Rican Culture (ICP)
• Emblema Oficial: Ethnic/Racial Hierarchy is
graphically encoded in the official seal of the
ICP

17. Instituto de Cultura Puertorriquena
ICP
• ICP Cultural Images

18. Instituto de Cultura Puertorriquena
Cultural Images
• La Plena by Rafael Tufino (1952)

19. ICP Images
• Abolition of Slavery in Puerto Rico 1873

20. ICP and Cultural Nationalism
• Definition of Puerto Rican Culture by Ricardo Alegria,
Anthropoligist and ICP Director:
– “culture is above all, a concept and a way of life; it is a
spiritual state that defines the physiognomy of a people,
of a nationality.” (Duany, 2002)
– “From the beginning we defined national culture as the
product of the integration that in the course of four
centuries and a half had taken place in Puerto Rico among
the respective cultures of the Taino Indians that inhabited
the Island at the time of the Discovery, of the Spaniards
who conquered and colonized it, and of the black Africans
who since the first decades of the sixteenth century began
to incorporate into our population.” (Alegria,1996 quoted
in Duany,2002)

21. Los Renegados
por Don Ricardo Alegria
• A story about who we are and who we want
to be…
• Narracion Inspirada en un cuento popular
puertorriqueno, ilustrador: Lorenzo Homar

22. Los Renegados, Xilografias de
Lorenzo Homar

23. Los Renegados
• Según cuenta Don Ricardo...
• “Cuando Dios hizo a los animales, hizo algunos para que volaran,
otros para que estuvieran en las aguas, y otros en la tierra. A un
grupo de los que estaba en la tierra, especialmente los ratones, les
dio envidia ver a las aves volar, y pidieron Dios que ellos tuvieran
alas, pero Dios dijo que no y que debían estar conformes. Así, nace
la envidia en la tierra.
• Finalmente, aparece el diablo y, aunque no puede crear, les
promete que los va a hacer volar y, estirándoles la piel, les hace
alas. Cuando las aves los ven venir, los rechazan por no ser iguales y
no tener plumas, y ellos tienen que regresar nuevamente a la tierra
y, allí, viven avergonzados por haber traicionado a los suyos. Como
todo lo folclórico, tiene una enseñanza”.

24. Puerto Rican Culture Through Music
What is Puerto Rican Culture?
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8yIqoQ1LpI
Salsa-Las Caras Lindas de Mi Gente Negra,
interpreted by Ismael Rivera
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIPV6lDUALA
Reggeaton, Rompe, interpreted by Daddy Yankee
and Ft. Lloyd Banks and Young Buck
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEdfvyS1WnU
Preciosa interpreted by Marc Anthony