Racial Politics, Gendered Norms, and the Rt Ansformation of Puerto Rican Identity in the Wet Ntieth Century Cristóbal A
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University of Texas at El Paso DigitalCommons@UTEP Open Access Theses & Dissertations 2014-01-01 Unspoken Prejudice: Racial Politics, Gendered Norms, And The rT ansformation Of Puerto Rican Identity In The weT ntieth Century Cristóbal A. Borges University of Texas at El Paso, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/open_etd Part of the Latin American History Commons, Latin American Languages and Societies Commons, Latin American Studies Commons, Other French and Francophone Language and Literature Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Borges, Cristóbal A., "Unspoken Prejudice: Racial Politics, Gendered Norms, And The rT ansformation Of Puerto Rican Identity In The wT entieth Century" (2014). Open Access Theses & Dissertations. 1590. https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/open_etd/1590 This is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UTEP. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Theses & Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UTEP. For more information, please contact [email protected]. UNSPOKEN PREJUDICE: RACIAL POLITICS, GENDERED NORMS, AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF PUERTO RICAN IDENTITY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY CRISTÓBAL A. BORGES Department of History APPROVED: Sandra McGee Deutsch, Ph.D., Chair Jeffrey P. Shepherd, Ph.D. Michael Topp, Ph.D. Marion Rohrleitner, Ph.D. Bess Sirmon-Taylor, Ph.D. Interim Dean of the Graduate School Copyright © by Cristóbal A. Borges 2014 Dedication Para Julie, Sofía e Ilia. Thank you for all the support. UNSPOKEN PREJUDICE: RACIAL POLITICS, GENDERED NORMS, AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF PUERTO RICAN IDENTITY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY by CRISTÓBAL A. BORGES, B.A., M.S., M.A. DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at El Paso in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of History THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT EL PASO May 2014 Acknowledgements The road travelled towards the completion of this endeavor has been a long and difficult one. Any task as large as the pursuit of a doctoral degree cannot be undertaken without struggle, but it would be impossible without the help of friends and colleages. My journey was no exception to this. From Puerto Rico to El Paso, Los Angeles, Denver, Seattle, Denton, New York, México, and England, I was the fortunate recipient of laughter, encouragement, inspirational conversations, discussions, and overall love extended to me by people I will never forget and hope to have close for the rest of my life. I want to extend a very sincere thank you to the institutions that provided me with access, backing and support: The University of Texas at El Paso, the Archivo General de Puerto Rico, the Fundación Luis Muñoz Marín, the Centro de Investigaciones Históricas de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, the Archivo Histórico Municipal del Municipio Autónomo de Ponce, the Huntington Library, the Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños at Hunter College, the University of Virginia Library and the Charles E. Young Library at the University of California, Los Angeles. Each holds a very special place in my heart, and I look forward to future visits. Finally, I want to thank my family. It has been a very tough haul for us, but this part of our adventure together is now done. May the days that lay before us be twice as wonderful as those we leave behind. v Abstract The dissertation uses border theory to craft a comparative study that explores the promotion of the white jíbaro in Puerto Rico throughout the twentieth century and the challenges to that racialized identity that emerged simultaneously. Through a biographical approach that examines the lives of José Julio Henna (1848-1924), Arturo Alfonso Schomburg (1874-1938), Muna Lee (1895-1965), Juano Hernández (1896-1970), Ruby Black (1896-1957), Luis Muñoz Marín (1898-1980), Pura Belpré (1899-1982), Inés Mendoza (1908-1990), and Roberto Clemente (1934-1972) as symbols of Puerto Ricanness and contributors to its definition, the dissertation analyzes the racial and gendered inequalities that persisted during twentieth century Puerto Rico. Those prejudices can still be encountered on the island, as well as throughout the contours of numerous Latin American regions. The project seeks to bring forth constructive comprehensions about the creation of identities with inherent prejudices and a method for uncovering how they have been challenged. It also decenters the jíbaro from Puerto Ricanness and challenges nationalist identities. The dissertation before you is an unwrapping of how the pueblo of Puerto Rico refashioned its communal identity. The goal is to expose racist injections and patriarchal constructs into it. The argument is presented in two parallel parts. First, I look at how Puerto Rican identity has been infused throughout the twentieth century with a continual promotion of whiteness and male superiority in an attempt to construct a unified cultural nationalism that could wrestle some control away from United States colonial power structures while replicating them. Second, I examined how throughout the century puertorriqueños challenged that identity and developed new understandings of puertorriqueñidad that began a process of creolization for their identity that is still unveiling itself. vi Table of Contents Acknowledgements ..........................................................................................................................v Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... vi Table of Contents .......................................................................................................................... vii Introduction ......................................................................................................................................1 Chapter One: Border Thinking, Puertorriqueñidad and the Populares in the Election of 1940 ....29 Defining Puertorriqueñidad through a white jíbaro ..............................................................36 Turning the jíbaro rhetoric political ......................................................................................53 Chapter 2: Controlling 1898 and Affirming an Identity Border: Henna, Schomburg, and the Exclusion of Blackness from Puerto Ricanness ....................................................................74 José Julio Henna ...................................................................................................................81 Arturo Alfonso Schomburg ...................................................................................................84 Joining the Revolution ..........................................................................................................90 “They get whiter all the time” ...............................................................................................95 Chapter 3: Positioning Femininity: Border Thinking through the Worlds of Muna Lee and Inés Mendoza in the 1930s .................................................................................................109 Muna Lee ............................................................................................................................117 Black — Lee — Muñoz Marín Triangle .............................................................................129 Inés Mendoza ......................................................................................................................155 Chapter 4: The Afroborinqueña/o Challenge: Juano Hernández, Pura Belpré, Roberto Clemente and the Creolization of Puertorriqueñidad ..........................................................163 Juano Hernández .................................................................................................................168 Pura Belpré ..........................................................................................................................176 Roberto Clemente ...............................................................................................................184 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................201 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................216 Primary Sources: .................................................................................................................216 Secondary Sources: .............................................................................................................218 vii Vita .............................................................................................................................................224 viii Introduction “Oye, no dejes que ese muchacho coja tanto sol. Se vá poner prieto.” I remember my grandmother saying these words to my mother when I was a young teenager as I walked in from a day at the beach in Fajardo, Puerto Rico. My face, shoulders and back had gathered so much sun that they radiated heat and produced a reddish glow that warned of the pain I would suffer the following day. I heard my grandmother’s words and did not think much about it at the time. Years later I grasped the very real threat a severe sunburn held in a society that suppressed a history of prejudice. My grandmother’s concern, “Don’t let