Colonial Incongruence at Work: Employing US Census Racial Categories in Puerto Rico

Godreau, Isar P.; Lloréns, Hilda; Vargas-Ramos, Carlos

doi:10.1111/j.1556-3502.2010.51511.x

Cited by 15 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…Data from this study support the notion that, even when racism is obvious, internalized, and enacted among some Puerto Ricans, PR's political status serves to create a dichotomy whereby the United States is perceived as a highly racialized and racist country relative to Puerto Rican society, where, although racism is prevalent, race is not represented as a problem. 17 Nonetheless, the racial self-identification as ''puertorriqueña'' in the context of the United States can be understood as a rejection of US-based racial categories, but may also demonstrate a lack of acknowledgment of racism among people in PR.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hence, whereas in the United States anyone with African ancestry is classified as ''Black,'' in PR race mixture is predominantly understood as a whitening mechanism. 17 According to the 2010 Census, 42% of Puerto Ricans who live in the states self-identified as white, as compared with 80.5% of those living in PR. This evidences the locally specific nature of this definition of Puerto Rican whiteness.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Experts from PR have argued that Puerto Ricans' beliefs about race and racism also reveal the pitfalls of a long-standing colonial dilemma between the United States and PR that makes it difficult to document structural racism. 17 In public health research it has been argued that racism can occur in multiple levels, including internalized (i.e., incorporation of racist attitudes, beliefs or ideologies into one's worldview), interpersonal (i.e., interactions between individuals), and structural level (i.e., racist control of and access to labor, material, and symbolic resources within a society). 18 There is significant evidence of race-associated differences in health outcomes, predominately in the United States context.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Race and Racism as Structural Determinants for Emergency and Recovery Response in the Aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria in Puerto Rico

Rodríguez-Díaz

Lewellen-Williams²

2020

Health Equity

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To explore the role of race and racism in emergency response and recovery in the aftermath of hurricanes in Puerto Rico (PR). Methods: Sixteen semistructured qualitative interviews were conducted between March and April 2018 with community members who had an active role in the process of response and relief efforts. Among participants, eight were from PR, and eight were of Puerto Rican descent living in the continental United States. Narrative text from interviews was analyzed using grounded theory approach and narrative analysis techniques. Results: Participants were adult men and women from different municipalities in PR and diverse regions of the continental United States and with diverse professional and economic backgrounds. In the analysis of the interviews, ''fitting the box'' of race, race in emergency and recovery response, and community philanthropy emerged across narratives as frequent and as illustrative of the issues of race/racism and response to natural disasters in PR. Participants shared a perception that the combination of disasters, including natural disasters and historic political mismanagement, is the cause of the precarious conditions in PR in the aftermath of the hurricanes. Race was perceived as a problematic construct in the understanding of Puerto Rican identities. Racism was contextualized as part of the complicated relationship between PR and the United States and as an obstacle for adequate emergency response. Conclusions: Systemic racism was perceived as a barrier to emergency and recovery response in the aftermath of natural disasters. Structural changes are required to reduce vulnerability and health inequities in PR.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Race and Racism as Structural Determinants for Emergency and Recovery Response in the Aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria in Puerto Rico

Rodríguez-Díaz

Lewellen-Williams²

2020

Health Equity

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“…1 Although there is not a question about religion on the census in the United States, Day (2013Day ( [2011, 165-167) elaborates the point about located identities with reference to how many Puerto Ricans' preference for 'white' as a race category depends on whether they live in Puerto Rico or the United States (see Godreau 2010) and how census questions reinforce the notion of English monolingualism as a natural and desirable state in a programme of assimilation (Leeman 2004).…”

Section: Censuses Surveys and The Ethics Of Reflexivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Making sense of surveys and censuses: Issues in religious self-identification

Day

Lee²

2014

Religion

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Censuses and surveys shape decisions, discourse and debates about people and their lived environments. The outcomes, in the case of a census, inform governments about resource distribution but also shape people's selfunderstanding about who they are and where they may be going. How people self-identify on censuses and surveys produces certain types of knowledge. This introduction emphasises the impact of those instruments on knowledge production and how numbers can be employed, often anecdotally, to further interests and claims. The way academics use and interpret such instruments has ethical and normative dimensions: numbers are not neutral but shape and are shaped by perceptions and identities. This introduction to a thematic issue of Religion introduces the contributing authors' diverse -historical, qualitative and quantitative -approaches that work together to produce their own kind of multi-disciplinary, academically located knowledge.

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“… 29 Trigueño is one 19 folk racial terms listed for Puerto Rico (Duany, 2002: 238), but certainly one with more relevance than others, to this day (see Godreau and Vargas-Ramos, 2009). …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Not Twenty Feet Away’: The Caribbean – and Race – in Sidney W Mintz’s Puerto Rican Fieldwork

Giovannetti

2018

Critique of Anthropology

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Focusing in the early years of Sidney W Mintz’s career and his ‘anthropological record’, this essay examines aspects of his legacy to the field of Caribbean studies. Using materials from Mintz’s fieldwork in Puerto Rico during the 1940s and 1950s, the author discusses experiences that may have influenced Mintz’s ideas and future scholarship in two specific areas. First, the localized fieldwork in the island’s southern town of Jauca (Santa Isabel), specifically on the plantation, is seen as a launching pad for scale-up thinking into large-scale analysis: from the Caribbean to hemispheric and Atlantic connections. Second, exposure to, and analysis of, complex issues of race during Mintz’s Puerto Rican fieldwork suggest the initial opening to future interventions he made on this topic.

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Colonial Incongruence at Work: Employing US Census Racial Categories in Puerto Rico

Cited by 15 publications

References 0 publications

Race and Racism as Structural Determinants for Emergency and Recovery Response in the Aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria in Puerto Rico

Race and Racism as Structural Determinants for Emergency and Recovery Response in the Aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria in Puerto Rico

Making sense of surveys and censuses: Issues in religious self-identification

‘Not Twenty Feet Away’: The Caribbean – and Race – in Sidney W Mintz’s Puerto Rican Fieldwork

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