{"id":59703,"date":"2020-06-13T22:07:56","date_gmt":"2020-06-13T22:07:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=59703"},"modified":"2020-06-22T00:56:04","modified_gmt":"2020-06-22T00:56:04","slug":"racialization-works-differently-here-in-puerto-rico-do-not-bring-your-u-s-centric-ideas-about-race-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=59703","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Racialization works differently here in Puerto Rico, do not bring your U.S.-centric ideas about race here!\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Racialization works differently here in Puerto Rico, do not bring your U.S.-centric ideas about race here!\u2019<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Black Perspectives<\/a>
\n2020-03-03<\/p>\n

Hilda Llor\u00e9ns<\/strong><\/a>, Associate Professor of Anthropology
\nUniversity of Rhode Island<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\n\u201cFSA \u2013 T[enant] P[urchase] borrowers? by their house, Puerto Rico<\/a>\u201d \u2013 Jack Delano (Library of Congress)<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

This title is a variation of a statement I have heard during the last two decades as a professional anthropologist. I was reminded of it again recently, when a Puerto Rico<\/a>-based colleague mentioned that it is common in the archipelago<\/a> to think about the race research produced by U.S.<\/a>-based Puerto Rican researchers as being tainted by U.S.-centric ideas about race. At its base, this assertion has the effect, and maybe even the goal from the outset, of discrediting the race research produced by those of us living in the Diaspora<\/a>. But I believe there is more going on than just marking our research as suspect.<\/p>\n

Because at this point I have heard variations of this opinion dozens of times, and particularly so by a subset of the archipelago\u2019s intelligentsia, it is time to explore the ideological work this claim does. This brief analysis is less a defense of the validity of research like mine, and instead exposes how as a cultural construction in itself, this hegemonic statement is an example of how cultural nationalism and anti-Black racism warps even the brightest minds. While it is true that anti-Black racism takes on specific and locally contextual qualities, it is also true that the anti-Black racism experienced by evidently Black individuals throughout the American hemisphere has strikingly similar consequences: poverty and marginalization<\/a>; lack of access to quality education<\/a>, health care<\/a>, employment<\/a>, and a clean environment<\/a>; police profiling and brutality<\/a>; spatial segregation<\/a> and territorial dispossession<\/a>; denial of entry<\/a> into restaurants, night clubs, stores, and country clubs; social marginalization<\/a> and political exclusion; and the attempt to silence<\/a> the voices of those who dare speak out against on-going racial violence and terror.<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Puerto Rico, much like in the rest of Latin America, anti-Black racism is embedded in the very denial of its existence by the state and society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1649,12,21,14646,8,394,20],"tags":[26485,30871,2654],"class_list":["post-59703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropology","category-articles","category-latincarib","category-latino","category-media-archive","category-socialscience","category-usa","tag-black-perspectives","tag-hilda-llorens","tag-puerto-rico"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59703"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59759,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59703\/revisions\/59759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}