Puerto Rican Identity

I want to be sure everyone in this group is aware of an outstanding set of lessons from Emerging America, a TPS Consortium member. It's called Puerto Rican Identity, and it includes helpful historical context, three different approaches to teaching with primary sources, and complete sets of Library of Congress primary sources that include images, audio files, maps, manuscripts, and music. It also follows Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles. 

From the lesson description:

Model Lesson for Engagement: In Puerto Rican Identity, students examine documents and other primary sources showing various generations of Puerto Ricans engaging with Anglo-American culture while preserving their cultural identity.   

Cultural Considerations: 

An essential facet of engagement is to ensure that materials and approaches are culturally relevant for the particular students in your classroom.  

​Puerto Ricans Arriving in at Newark airport, 1947

I would also suggest checking out all three Classroom Activity Ideas. Although geared to this unit, they would work well with all sorts of primary sources lessons no matter what the content.

1. Timeline Activity: ​ Have students sort photographs from the primary source set into chronological order. Provide students with key event dates. Ask students to reflect on the ways that early events may effect current identity of Puerto Rican Americans.
2. Perspective-Taking:​ Ask students to choose one person from a photograph or audio-recording. After carefully analysis, students will select a perspective from which they will write or speak. Use the photograph or recording to create questions that will launch research to inform students’ writing.
3. Semantic Mapping:​ Semantic Mapping leads to written end products. Students will have a graphic organizer with the categories where each image might fall under. They have to check off the categories where the images might be categorize and explain on a space provided in the organizer why they selected that category.

  3 - 5    6 - 8    9 - 12    Social Studies/History    Bilingual Education/ESL    Puerto Rico    Teaching Strategies  

  Rich Cairn    Alison Noyes  

A photographer returns to his native island to document a handful of artists devoted to preserving its rich creative traditions.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/artisans-puerto-rico-sustain-native-culture-180982110/

Sources of Justice in Films features films as a dynamic form of primary sources for classroom instruction to: engage students; encourage deep reflection; promote dialogue; and document their personal experience with justice and in their communities. There are two parts to the online programming-- Friday film screenings and a summer institute to engage with the filmmakers. All are welcome to one or more of the events. [Note: The Friday film screenings are not a prerequisite for the summer institute. Participants will get private access to films before the institute.]

Want more information? Get in touch with   Tuyen Tran  

Coming this Friday, April 28, 4pm PST (online!) 

We Still Here introduces the incredible youth of Comerío, Puerto Rico navigating the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, a disaster that brought an unprecedented level of devastation to an island already in an economic and political crisis. In the lush mountains in the center of Puerto Rico, 24-year-old Mariangelie Ortiz leads a group of young residents who never thought they would become the leaders of their community, nonetheless find themselves traveling to Washington D.C. to protest in the halls of Congress. Follow them in this coming of age story to find their power and begin creating a sustainable future for themselves and their community. (Run time 54 minutes)

Ph.D. candidate Daniel Morales-Armstrong’s research considers whose voices and narratives prevail and whose are plagued by silences.

https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/black-puerto-rican-history

Interesting article: Cacao Makes a Comeback in Puerto Rico https://modernfarmer.com/2023/01/cacao-in-puerto-rico/

See page 68 Branch and Fruit of the Cacao Tree in a book from 1900.

https://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbpr.03875/?sp=74&st=text

George, M. M. (1900) A little journey to Puerto Rico; for intermediate and upper grades. [Chicago, A. Flanagan Company] [Pdf] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/02003875/.

Rickey, B. (1906) Branch Rickey Papers: Baseball File, -1971; Scouting reports; 1955; C-D. - 1971. [Manuscript/Mixed Material] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/mss37820010/.  

The Detroit tribune. (Detroit, Mich.), 17 March 1962. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92063852/1962-03-17/ed-1/seq-7/>

Articles

https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2022/dec/27/clemente-still-latino-legend-50-years-later/

https://www.weirtondailytimes.com/sports/2022/12/clemente-still-a-latino-legend-50-years-after-his-death-at-38/

Interesting article.

https://www.history.com/news/puerto-rico-great-migration-postwar 

Author Xochitl Gonzalez, a Brooklynite of Puerto Rican descent, will be on the stage at this Saturday's National Book Festival to talk about her breakout novel, Olga Dies Dreaming. You can read about Gonzalez and her delightful autobiographical novel HERE at the National Book Festival blog. 

If I were lucky enough to be in D.C. for the National Book Festival, I would definitely add the Pop Lit stage, 3:25-4:25 p.m., to my calendar and plans. Gonzalez will be part of a three-author "Is There Anything Funnier than Politics?" panel.

Or if your reading time is limited, you can look forward to a one-hour pilot production on Hulu! 

  6 - 8    9 - 12    13+    Library    English/Language Arts    National Book Festival  

For those of you who enjoy Mofongo as much as I do, you may find this article interesting.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/a-brief-history-of-puerto-ricos-beloved-mofongo-180979947/ 

https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/prvi/sitelist.htm