US colonial education reforms aimed to Americanize Puerto Rican students

Evidence

In 1904, Puerto Rico’s education system was overhauled by the United States. Key to these efforts was a push for Puerto Ricans to become “American” and for its people to assimilate (Negrón, 1977). For example, in the early 1900s, stateside American education officials declared English language and American culture acquisition as essential components of Puerto Rico’s schools’ goals and curriculum. In short, teachers in Puerto Rico were taught to instruct in ways to aid the newly colonized territory to become more “American” and ignore traditions and cultures of native Puerto Ricans (Negrón, 1977). … Moreover, in letters during this time, Puerto Rico’s education secretaries reflected views of the “nobility of imperialism” (Caban, 2002), detailing how these reforms aligned to that of stateside education systems. The letters detail new teacher evaluations and, most importantly, the plan to Americanize Puerto Rico by depositing American traditions and knowledge into students. While most of these colonizing enculturation efforts failed to some degree, they left a legacy of economic stratification and heavily regulating public schools (Negrón, 1977); indeed, the continued effort to “Americanize” Puerto Ricans remains a key feature of its contemporary school system. — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 929

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the book’s theme of education as colonization operating inside schools, and to school curricula encoding racial hierarchies from ch4 of this book. — connects to: School closures in the reform disproportionately harmed rural Puerto Ricans — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 933; Colonial education aimed to create a compliant middle class to support European colonization; Colonial education aimed to limit indigenous aspirations rather than expand them — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 720 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Colonial education aimed to limit indigenous aspirations rather than expand them #corroborates (0.88) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 720
• Colonial education reproduced the imperial curriculum and deferred indigenization. #corroborates (0.87)
• Colonial education aimed to create a compliant middle class to support European colonization #corroborates (0.85)
• Colonial education familiarizes the colonized subject with the metropole from inside #expands (0.82)
• Colonial education policy deliberately aimed to avoid creating nationalist intellectuals #corroborates (0.80) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 856
• Colonial education embedded English literary culture into young Black Caribbean children. #exemplifies (0.80) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1174
• 1883 colonial policy racialized education by training natives as laborers and Europeans as managers #corroborates (0.78) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 752
• Colonial education made deracination the price of Black middle-class status #expands (0.78) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 861
• Colonial education aimed to starve desires, not merely discipline them #corroborates (0.75) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 775
• Local teachers transmitted nationalist tendencies even within English-oriented colonial schooling #complicates (0.75) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 754
• Colonial education aimed to create a domestic serving class barred from its own comforts #corroborates (0.72)