Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Colonial Education: Puerto Ricans and the Carlisle Indian School, Progenitors of the Mythic Identity
Date of Degree
6-2022
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Program
Liberal Studies
Advisor
Karen Miller
Subject Categories
Caribbean Languages and Societies | Indigenous Education | Latina/o Studies | Native American Studies | Race and Ethnicity
Keywords
Race, Ethnicity, Class, Education, Structure, Identity, Culture, Power, Colonization, Empire
Abstract
‘GOD HELPS THOSE WHO HELP THEMSELVES’ reads a subheading of The Red Man –a historic periodical memorializing the tune of 19th century Americana with references to Godliness and its connection to Indianness and ostentatious capitalism in a canon of school newspapers. The Red Man was the staple periodical of the Carlisle Indian Industrial Institute published monthly and declared “in the interest of Indian education and civilization” for the annual price of 50 cents[1] The subject and recipients of The Red Man would also include 193 Puerto Rican students sent to Carlisle through the U.S.’s campaign to Americanize the Caribbean after the annexation of Puerto Rico. This project is a historical examination of how institutions like Carlisle circulated colonization as part of the panoply of imperial dominance that circumscribed Puerto Ricans and Indigenous People of the Americas and challenged extant their identities from 1898 to 1918. Through this examination, I will explore the liminal relationship between the U.S. and the Puerto Rican people by examining the rise of Carlisle Indian Industrial Institute as an international mechanism of Anglophile colony-making in Puerto Rico. Finally, this project will discuss the Puerto Rican experience at the Carlisle Boarding School as a premium example of how Puerto Ricans were subjected around labor of the second industrial revolution.
Keywords: Race, Ethnicity, Class, Education, Structure, Identity, Culture, Power, Colonization, Empire
Key Concepts: Institutionalism, Liminality, Puerto Ricanness, Life Stories, Ethnopoetics, Indianness
[1] The Carlisle School Newspaper. The Carlisle Digital Resource Center. The Red Man: His Present and Future. Vol XV No. 10, January 1900
Recommended Citation
Swinea, Melissa, "Colonial Education: Puerto Ricans and the Carlisle Indian School, Progenitors of the Mythic Identity" (2022). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/4879
Included in
Caribbean Languages and Societies Commons, Indigenous Education Commons, Latina/o Studies Commons, Native American Studies Commons, Race and Ethnicity Commons