Puerto Rico: The island of enchantment

This is a guide of Puerto Rico’s culture, there’s articles, books, book’s reviews etc.

Here you’ll find everything about Puerto Rico, it’s an introduction to this investigation.

Tahir, I., & Anderson, S. (2014). Puerto Rico. Salem Press Encyclopedia,

This extensive essay, part of a volume of studies on Puerto Rico, presents various views of Puerto Rican culture. Puerto Rico’s role in the history of the Caribbean region and Puerto Rican attitudes and values are described, and in a survey of pertinent literature, works on the Puerto Rican family, community, race relations, and social change are discussed. (A bibliography is included.) An introduction to this essay defines the general concept of culture. (LB)

Mintz, S. W. (1966). Puerto Rico: An Essay in the Definition of a National Culture

An article about Puerto Rico’s identity:

Greenberg, D. J. (2015). Eating Puerto Rico: A History of Food, Culture, and Identity. The Historian, (4), 802.

When Columbus arrived in the Caribbean, the indigenous groups, labeled Tainos by historians and archaeologists, inhabited PuertoRico and other parts of the Greater Antilles. For more than three hundred years the traditional historiography has claimed that these groups and their culture became ‘extinct’ within a few decades of European colonization. In the past fifty years, however, an indigenous revival movement that has been called Neo-Tainos has developed, calling into question the claims of cultural and biological extinction. These claims have triggered a multilateral and unresolved debate between members of the Neo-Taino movement, historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists that has spread to the general public and popular culture of the Island. This paper presents a historical review of the debate, the main positions in favor of or against the claims of Taino descendancy in Puerto Rican communities both in the Island and in the continent, and discusses several issues that need to be considered and addressed to gain a better understanding of the controversy.

Curet, L. A. (2015). Indigenous revival, indigeneity, and the Jibaro in Boriken. CENTRO: Journal Of The Center For Puerto Rican Studies, (1), 206.

Article about a group of 13 students and two sponsors from the Fort Hays State University GoGlobal Living and Learning Community are assisting construction of new houses in Puerto Rico.

(2015). FHSU students build houses and experience culture in Puerto Rico. UWIRE Text.

This finding aid lists recorded collections in the Archive of Folk Culture of the Library of Congress that document the traditional music and folklife of PuertoRico and of PuertoRicans in the United States. Brief descriptions of the recordings are accompanied by identification numbers. Information about listening to or ordering any of the listed recordings is available from the Archive of Folk Culture. (AEF)

Rodriguez, D. J., Library of Congress, W. C., & And, O. (1993). Puerto Rico Recordings in the Archive of Folk Culture. LC Folk Archive Finding Aid.

This article looks at the way contemporary dance and movement forms of artists Las Nietas de Nonó, Viveca Vázquez, and Karen Langevin in today’s Puerto Rico reflect a “deviant itinerary.” I am specifically interested in paradigm switches, in connection to the ideas developed by scholar Juan Flores, who invites us to see what Caribbean migrants who have grown up in the diaspora or who have come and gone many times, back and forth from US cities to Puerto Rico, contribute or “strike back” with in our islands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PLATÓN LÁZARO, L. (2016). Dance and Performance in Puerto Rico: Striking Back, Striking Forward. Centro Journal, 28(1), 92-111.

Puerto Rican national identity is based on a tri-racial discourse. This discourse is exposed and defended in literature, film and cultural production. The objective of this article is to study how the film industry, starting with the DIVEDCO program, articulated race in order to show a homogeneous representation. This project purported to neutralize diversity, specifically, the African heritage. Through my analysis I will deconstruct this homogeneity and highlight how race is constructed in film in order to open a dialogue and discussion of racial issues regarding a conflicting Puerto Rican identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABREU-TORRES, D. (2015). (Des)Articulando la negritud: codificaciones de raza en el cine nacional puertorriqueño. Centro Journal, 27(2), 132-161.

This article focuses on the intersections among language, literacy, and culture, and what these intersections have meant for the author personally, and what they can mean for students who have been marginalized, neglected, or made invisible by traditional understandings of the role of education. Although not linked conceptually in the past, the more recent tendency to connect language, literacy, and culture gives a richer picture of learning, especially for students whose identities are related to language, race, ethnicity, and immigrant status have traditionally had a low status in many societies. One result of this reconceptualization is that more education programs are reflecting and promoting a sociocultural perspective in language and literacy. Such a perspective is firmly rooted in an anthropological and sociological understanding of culture, a view of learning as socially constructed, and an understanding of how students from diverse segments of society experience schooling, due to differential access to literacy specifically, and to education more broadly. The context the author discusses in this article is grounded in her own experience as a Puerto Rican second-generation immigrant–also called “Nuyorican” or, more recently, “Diasporican”–in the United States, although the implications for teaching and learning go beyond her own limited experience. She is aware that multiple and conflicting ideas exist about these theoretical perspectives, but some basic tenets of sociocultural theory can serve as a platform for this article. Here, the author explores a number of these tenets, illustrating them with examples from her own experiences to demonstrate why a sociocultural perspective is invaluable in uncovering some of the tensions and dilemmas of schooling and diversity.

Nieto, S. (2013). Language, Literacy, and Culture: Aha! Moments in Personal and Sociopolitical Understanding. Journal Of Language And Literacy Education, 9(1), 8-20.

A book review about the American Empire and the Politics of Meaning: Elite Political Cultures in the Philippines and Puerto Rico during U.S. Colonialism

Bankoff G. American Empire and the Politics of Meaning: Elite Political Cultures in the Philippines and Puerto Rico during U.S. Colonialism. Journal Of Social History[serial online]. 2012;(3):839. Available from: Academic OneFile, Ipswich, MA. Accessed October 7, 2016.

Reviews several books concerning the economy, politics, and culture of Puerto Rico in the 1990s. `Cubans in Puerto Rico: Ethnic Economy and Cultural Identity,’ by Jose A. Cobas and Jorge Duany; `Poverty and Income Inequality in Puerto Rico, 1970-1990,’ by Orlando J. Sotomayor; `Puerto Rican Jam: Essays on Culture and Politics,’ edited by Frances Negron-Muntaner and Ramon Grosfoguel; `Puerto Rico: Culture, Politics, and Identity,’ by Nancy Morris.

Pantojas-Garcia, E. (2000). END-OF-THE-CENTURY STUDIES OF PUERTO RICO’S ECONOMY, POLITICS, AND CULTURE: What Lies Ahead?. Latin American Research Review, 35(3), 227-240.

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Now, i’ll leave here some internet searches on Puerto Rico’s culture and a score on how reliable they are.

Cultura and life in Puerto Rico: