Race and Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore - Franz Boas and John Alden Mason in Porto Rico

This book highlights Franz Boas’s historic trip to Puerto Rico in 1915, which included the documentation of oral folklore. On that trip, a rising anthropologist involved in the project, John Alden Mason, collected one of the largest oral folklore collections from any Spanish-speaking country or territory. The stories, many of them written by rural cultural informants, the Jibaros, offer an outstanding view of an early twentieth century Puerto Rican identity. 

List of contents

List of Illustrations

Introduction: Retention and Reinvention of Puerto Rican Oral Folklore Tales                             

1          Porto Rico as a Colonial Scientific Laboratory: Documenting Puerto Rican Oral Folklore

            Part I: The Island of Porto Rico in the U.S. Public Eye

            Part II: Identifying Porto Rican Folklore: The Compilation Process                                             

2          A Post-Spanish American War National Identity: Editing Puerto Rican Folktales in a Socio-Political Vacuum                      

            Part I: Arguing about La Raza and a Native Puerto Rican Culture

            Part II: Editing in a Socio-Political Vacuum: Personal and Professional Differences          

3          Jíbaros' Authorship through Self-Literary Characterization 

            Part I: A Countryside-inspired Folklore through Jíbaros' Authorship

            Part II: Juan Bobo and Other Native Picaresque Characters: Surviving the Rural Campo   

4          Telling a Story about Class and Ethnicity through Fairy Tales, Cuentos puertorriqueños and Leyendas

            Part I: Expressing Jíbaro Cultural Values through Native Oral Folklore

            Part II: El campo as a Site of Puerto Rican Identity in Cuentos de encantamiento, Cuentos puertorriqueños and Leyendas puertorriqueñas                                                                           

5          An (Un)colored Puerto Rican Culture: Unpublished Negro Fieldwork in Old Loíza

            Part I: Loíza as a Site of an Afro-Puerto Rican Culture

            Part II: Reconstructing A Post-Slavery Afro-Puerto Rican Popular Folklore: The Unpublished Field Notes                                

6          Tropicalizing the Puerto Rican Racial Past: The Quest of an Indian Area                           

Conclusion

Acknowledgments      

Notes

Bibliography                                                                                                                   

Index

 

About the author

RAFAEL OCASIO is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Spanish at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, Georgia. 

Summary

Explores the founding father of American anthropology's historic trip to Puerto Rico in 1915. As a component of the Scientific Survey of Porto Rico and the Virgin Islands, Boas intended to perform field research in the areas of anthropology and ethnography there while other scientists explored the island's natural resources.

Product details

• Authors: Rafael Ocasio
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.08.2020
• EAN: 9781978810211
• ISBN: 978-1-978810-21-1
• No. of pages: 252
• Series: Critical Caribbean Studies
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous