Linguistic and Cultural Assimilation of Puerto Ricans in the United States: Legacies of Juan Jose Osuna and Pura Belpré | Dr. Amarilis Hidalgo
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Since the foundation of the American nation, the creation of bilingual education programs has been an important aspect in the history of education. [1]Native American children were forbidden to speak their languages in public. They were sent to schools created only for Native American children[2] to be fast assimilated into the American culture and society. During the 1700s and 1800s poor European immigrants put down roots in American rural areas running their own-non English speaking schools. In 1839 Ohio became the first state in the union to establish a bilingual education law to permit German-English instruction. Several years after, Louisiana passed a similar law, allowing French-English instruction. After signing the Treaty of Hidalgo, Americans gave the rights to Mexicans living in the new territories to speak Spanish and to be educated in their native tongue. In 1864 the American congress passed a law in which Native Americans were forbidden to be educated in their own languages. By 1870, in Missouri, the school superintendent established the first American kindergarten taught in German. After the 1898 Spanish American War and invasion of Cuba and Puerto Rico, the United States created intensive assimilation language projects in both countries. During those years the sons of wealthy Spaniards born and raised in Cuba and Puerto Rico were sent to American East Coast universities or schools[3] to be educated in English. Some others went to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School to speed up their Americanization and assimilation process:
Research is very limited on the human tragedy represented by the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. What is even less well known is that about sixty young Puerto Ricans were subjected to the experiment at Carlisle, almost all of them sent there by the United States colonial government on the island. (Dunkelberg, Robert. 119 Osuna.pdf. www.bloomu.edu)
Among the wealthy Puerto Rican students were Dr. Antonio Fernos, who became one of the first Puerto Rican doctors educated in the United States; and less economic fortunate, Juan José Osuna, who wrote the first history of Puerto Rican education.
1.1 Puerto Ricans in the Northeast Coast
The first migrations of Puerto Ricans to the US occurred in the 19th century when
Puerto Rican cigar makers migrated to the NYC to work in the Cigar shops owned by Cubans. The migration also brought the syndicalism movement of Puerto Ricans to NYC. During that period Puerto Ricans were very active supporters of the emerging American Union Movements of the time. Cesar Andrew Iglesias captured this Puerto Rican syndicalism involvement in Memories of Bernardo Vega. Before and after the Spanish American War Puerto Rican patriots such as Jose de Diego, Eugenio Maria de Hostos, Luis Muñoz Rivera and José Balbosa migrated or visited NYC in search of solutions for the independence cause of Puerto Rico.
At the end of the 19th century and early 20th century Puerto Ricans culturally tied to American culture as a consequence of the Spanish American War. The United States won the war over Spain and as a result lost Puerto Rico and its other ultramarine possessions became American possessions. By 1917 the US granted to Puerto Ricans through the Act Jones the American citizenship. This was done just in time to draft Puerto Ricans into the Armed Forces to fight with the American army in the First World War.
From 1930’s to 1940’s the first massive migration of poor Puerto Ricans to NY City took place. From the island countryside to the slums of San Juan and from the slums of San Juan to the slums of NY City, Puerto Rican migrated massively. Most of them settled down in the lower east part of Manhattan, in barrios such as the Bronx or Queens. Puerto Ricans went to live in Jewish and Italian barrios. Jewish landlords accepted the Puerto Ricans without any cultural and ethnic problem. However, ethnic tensions between Puerto Ricans and Italians begun. Puerto Ricans were mistreated, harassed and persecuted by young Italians gangs. Soon discords between both groups arose. These conflicts were perpetuated in the movie “West Side Story” and the writings of Puerto Rican writers such as Jesus Colon, Piri Thomas, Julia de Burgos, and Nicholasa Mohr. In New York City Puerto Rican woman went to work on garment factories becoming the providers of the family. On the contrary, Puerto Rican men became migrant workers because they did not have the skills to work in an industrialized city. A large percentage of them were unemployed, became beggars or alcoholic or committed suicide. The best example of what happened to Puerto Rican males during that period was written by Jose Luis Gonzalez’ story “The letter.”
The largest migration of Puerto Ricans to the United States mainland occurred during the Operation Bootstrap years. Through this period around 69,124 Puerto Rican migrated mostly to New York City, Newark and Chicago. The sons and daughters of these Puerto Ricans became known as Nuyorican’s. At the beginning the term had a derogatory use in Puerto Rico. It was used to call the son and daughters of the 20th’s Puerto Rican Diaspora to New York City. With the years became a homogenous name used for all the Puerto Rican born and raised in the United States. The name also became a political and literary term in the 60’s for the Newyorikan Cafe artist movement in New York City. Puerto Rican migration to the United States has been known as a colonial migration. Although Puerto Ricans begun migrating to the United States in the second part of the 19th century, the biggest migration of Puerto Ricans occurred after the 1920’s.[4] Those Puerto Ricans settled down in New York City transforming the educational system of the city with the creation of the first bilingual schools in their barrios and also creating the first Hispanic bilingual community college in the city: Hostos Community College.
Taking into consideration the history of the Puerto Rican migration to the East Coast, in this article I aim to analyze the role of educational assimilation in the works of Juan José Osuna as a legacy of future assimilation educational projects of Puerto Ricans in the United States and the work of Pura Belpré, the first Puerto Rican librarian in NYC and the creation of bilingual reading programs for Puerto Rican children in NYC. Osuna and Belpré portrayed the educational hostility toward the assimilation process of Puerto Rican children in the United States.
2. Juan José Osuna and the Americanization Educational Process of Puerto Rico
In 1898 the United States invaded Puerto Rico and Cuba. Immediately the American government took over the control of the islands. The goal was to fast assimilate through public education the people of Puerto Rico and Cuba. Although Puerto Ricans and Cubans were seen as part European by the American government, they were also conceived culturally and racially different, and also judged inferior and would be excluded from the body politics of the United States… US colonial officials believed that through a campaign of Americanization these strange and exotic peoples would be converted into semiliterate, loyal subjects who would apprehend the legitimacy of the U.S. sovereignty and accept the new political and economic order that would be imposed to their societies” (Cabán, “The Colonization Mission of the United States in Puerto Rico” 118)[5].
One of those exotic, illiterate, and strange people was the cagueño, Juan José Osuna, who was one of the first Puerto Ricans who came to the United States after the Spanish American War (1898) to be educated in an immerse language program and culture in Pennsylvania. Osuna was born and race in his parents’ hacienda in the Barrio Borinquen in Caguas. When his passed away, his mother sent him to the United States with other Puerto Ricans who were also joined by some Latin Americans. According to Robert Duclenburg, “It was difficult at first for the Latin American students to adjust. To help them overcome their poor command of English, the school employed several faculty members who knew Spanish (119 Osuna.pdf. www.bloomu.edu)
Because Osuna was not fluent in English and was not considered White American, he was placed with other Puerto Ricans and Cubans in the Carlisle Indian Industrial School funded in 1879. Osuna arrived in New York City in 1901. He was sixteenth years old. From New York he went to study English and American culture at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania were Native American children, as I already mentioned, were sent to be assimilated into the mainstream culture of the time. At the school, Osuna stated,
We looked at the windows of the buildings, and very peculiar-looking faces peered out at us. We had never seen such people before. The buildings seemed full of them. Behold, we had arrived at the Carlisle Indian School! The United States of America, our new rulers, thought that the people of Puerto Rico were Indians; hence they should be sent to an Indian school, and Carlisle happened to be the nearest. (Dunkelberg, Robert. 119 Osuna.pdf. www.bloomu.edu)
Although Osuna advanced on his studies, he did not improve his English skills while in Carlisle, perhaps because his resistance to be treated as a Native American:
To the leadership of the United States, both Puerto Ricans and Cubans were "colored" and should be educated in the same way as the Blacks and Indians in the United States. They established public school systems in Cuba and Puerto Rico and established scholarships to send students to schools in the United States such as the Hampton Institute in Virginia, the Tuskegee Normal School in Tuskegee, Alabama, and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. (120)
After a year, Osuna was sent to Columbia County, Pennsylvania to work during summer at the Welsh Farm in Orangeville, PA: “I knew very little English, now I have to learn English” (2). In the farm he was under the tutelage of Ms. Elmira Welsh who became his adopted American mother. When summer was over and with the permission of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School authorities, Osuna stayed in the farm and enrolled in the Orangeville rural Neyheart One Room School where he improved his English linguistic skills and also became an avid English reader:
Neyheart rural school was about a mile from our place. Ms, Schoonover the teacher had been Dr. Welsh’s teacher in Orangeville. She was about sixty years old, one of the most wonderful teachers I ever had. She lived at our place, so I had the supervision of teachers at home. The school was a typical rural school of the days, one school with seats for about forty students… It had eight grades… (3)
After completing Eight Grade and the first year of the Bloomsburg Normal School curriculum, he enrolled at Bloomsburg Normal School, finished his second year at BNS, and after being recalled by the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, he graduated in 1905:
I finished my normal course and graduated with honors. In the meantime, in the Spring 1905 Carlisle recalled me, examined me, and granted me the diploma of Carlisle Indian Industrial School with the class of 1905. This act severed by relation with the Federal Government. I was now ready to teach.” (Osuna 3)
Years later, Osuna graduated from Penn State University and finished his Ph.D in education at Columbia University. He also returned to Puerto Rico where he became a Dean of Education at the University of Puerto Rico, College of Education. Osuna died in Virginia in1950 and ironically requested to be buried in Orangeville, Pennsylvania where his assimilation and Americanization process was completed.
The legacy of Osuna in the history of education in Puerto Rico and the history of education in the United States is immense. No only he was one of the first Puerto Ricans who was exposed to an accelerated Americanization and assimilation process, he was also a Puerto Rican who surpasses the linguistic, racial and cultural barriers imposed by the American society and government of the time to a group of Caribbean and Native American young men and women, as he stated on his autobiography, “An Indian, In Spite of Myself” (Dunkelberg 1). He also wrote the first book about the history of education in Puerto Rico. At the end of that book, Osuna reflected on the transformation of the Puerto Rican educational system through an accelerated Americanization and educational program. He even brought back in that reflection his own assimilation and Americanization experience:
All of this progress has been reached against many odds. Among these may be enumerated such as the necessary adjustment to a new and foreign civilization; the complicated problem created by the language issue; the traditional practice among colonial empires to fit the cultural patterns of the suzerain country on the newly acquired territory without enough regard to their cultural backgrounds or even local needs; the necessity of improvising teachers in a hurry… (Osuna 601)
Osuna opened the educational doors to other Puerto Ricans in the United States, such as Pura Belpré who became an important educator and librarian in New York City
3. Pura Belpré and the education of Puerto Rican children in NYC
Puerto Rican migrants to the United States during the first part of the 20th century brought with them several skills that they could not use or seldom use in the new land. They were forced to take any kind of job that required the minimum skills to survive. Clara Rodríguez mentions that in the migration of Puerto Ricans, “they have to accept whatever jobs were available. Even those who arrived with skills or had training in white collar occupations have to take whatever places were offered to them” (Handlin 70). [6] Pura Belpré was one of those Puerto Ricans whose work has been perpetuated in different publications about her work and approach to the story Pérez y Martina. In this story the images of la cucarachita Martina and el ratoncito Pérez became the emblematic symbol of the beginning of bilingual reading programs in NYC and also the linguistic resistance of Puerto Ricans in the New York City public education system. In 2009 Yvonne Denis Rosario published the chronic “La cucaracha y el ratón en la biblioteca” in memory of Pura Belpré and her contributions to the bilingual education programs in New York City: “.., es la única forma de hacerles cuentos e historias de Puerto Rico. Sus padres son puertorriqueños, no lo olvides, y su primer idioma es el español” (74). In 2019 Anika Aldamuy and Paola Escobar published Sembrando historias: Pura Belpré: bibliotecaria y narradora de cuentos and Annette Bay Pimentel and Magaly Morales (illustrator) published Los cuentos de Pura Belpré / Pura's Cuentos: How Pura Belpré Reshaped Libraries with Her Stories (Spanish Edition). Both books were dedicated to expose the life of Pura Belpré to American children. Tere Marichal Lugo, on the other hand, in her book La Cucarachita Martina y el Ratoncito Pérez: cuento folclórico puertorriqueño reinvented the story through a feminist discourse, deconstructing the patriarchal discourse in the story. She also stated in a book review post when she was questioned about the authorship of the story, “La historia de la Cucarachita Martina tiene su origen en Persia. Hay más de 33 versiones en diferentes países del mundo. No fue creado por Pura Belpré. Ella lo escuchó de niña y como forma parte del folclor puertorriqueño, lo recontó” (https://booksrun.com/9781646062102-la-cucarachita-martina-y-el-ratoncito-perez-cuento-folclorico-puertorriqueno-coleccion-mancha-de-platano-spanish-edition). Being the author or not, the legacy of Belpré became the symbol of Latino and Puerto Rian children literacy in New York City. A system that Juan José Osuna also embraced when advocating for better education and schools for Puerto Rican children studying in Puerto Rican barrios schools in NYC.
Pura Belpré began her education at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. She migrated to the United States in 1920: “Para entonces había estudiado en la Escuela Central en Santurce, Puerto Rico, e inicié estudios universitarios en la Isla” Denis Rosario 73). While in New York City, she worked in the garment industry of the time. Years later she was hired as a Hispanic Assistant by the New York Public Library in Harlem: “Luego de esperar alrededor de un mes, Pura Belpré fue elegida para ocupar la posición que se anunció en la Biblioteca Pública de Nueva York. Era la primera puertorriqueña en obtener dicho puesto” (73). Since then, she was known as one of the librarians pioneering on the Hispanic studies section of the New York Public Library system of the time. With the time she became the librarian in charge of the children collection at the Harlem New York City public library. In 1926 she re-took her formal studies to become a librarian. This was the time when she discovered her story telling passion:
-Me gusta la narración y los cuentos infantiles., En Puerto Rico hay una tradición grande de cuentos orales.
-Acabo de escribir un cuento basado en la historia oral de la Cucarachita Martina y el ratón Pérez. El mío se titula Pérez y Martina (www.reforma.org/ content.asp?contentid=74).
At the library she presented to children the Puerto Rican folk story “La historia de la cucarachita Martina y el Ratoncito Pérez” renaming the story “Pérez y Martina”. This folk tale became the first Puerto Rican folk tale “shared with children at a story hour in the public library” (www.reforma.org/ content.asp?contentid=43). She also published children bilingual stories such as Pérez and Martina: a Portorican Folk Tale and the "The Three Magi."
During the 1920’s the Spanish speaking population of New York increased. By this time the NYC Public library was looking for a bilingual person who could take over the mission of educating latino children, “La comunidad latina crecía y se necesitaba personal que comprendiera ambos idiomas” (72). In 1929 she was transferred to the library of south Harlem where she “became an active advocate for the Spanish-speaking community by instituting bilingual story hours, buying Spanish language books, and implementing programs based on traditional holidays such as the celebration of Three Kings Day” (www.reforma.org/content. asp?contentid=43). Because she was an advocate of bilingual education, she also expanded her bilingual reading programs to the East Harlem library. To be able to succeed in her bilingual educational entrepreneurship she became a community leader and joined several “civic organizations such as the Porto Rican Brotherhood of America and La Liga Puertorriqueña e Hispana. Through Belpré's efforts, the 115th Street branch became an important cultural center for the Latino residents of New York City.” (www.reforma.org/ content.asp?contentid=43).
Conclusion
Juan José Osuna and Pura Belpré definitely transformed the history of Puerto Ricans in the United States. Osuna became the symbol of the resistance to the Americanization process of Puerto Rico. Although he married Margaret Welsh, lived and died in Virginia, and requested to be buried in Orangeville, Pennsylvania, never let himself to be lost in the assimilation and Americanization process of Puerto Ricans in the United States and Puerto Rico. On the other hand, Pura Belpré through her bilingual reading programs at the New York Public library and the creation of children’s books with Puerto Rican legends or folklore provided to a generation of Puerto Rican children the opportunity of being educated about their culture and language through bilingual stories.
Appendix II
Fragment of Juan José Osuna Memoirs: An Indian In spite of Myself
As soon as the boat got started we children began to run all over the boat investigating everything. Then a petty officer came along with a long whip and chased us down to the lower deck with the soldiers. How we hated him. Everybody had been kind so far, and bow we were chased with a whip. Our Latin blood began to boil and we were very resentful of the treatment we were receiving. After the soldiers were fed, we were put in line and given our rations, which we could not eat. As evening was approaching the petty officer chased us below down deck after deck, until we were away down below the surface of the water. He gave us each one hammock, showed us where and how to hang then and told us to go to bed. A more disappointed, homesick and seasick lot of boys you never saw in your life. How we wished to be back home and how some of the older boys cursed the Americano.
The second day of the voyage came, we went up to see day light and lay around on the floor or any place we could – but not above the lower deck. As we were seasick we lay flat on the floor ready and wishing to die. It was cold and we had no raps, but only our little cottons and linens which we wore at home. I suppose I looked very sick, because a lady, whom I thought was an angel, came down, from the upper deck and had one of the sailors carry me to the upper deck just outside of her state room. She placed me in a chair, wrapped me with blankets, tucked me in well and soon I was dead asleep. When I awoke, she fed me some broth, cleaned me up a little with a wash rag and I was a new man. She took me into a state room and introduced me to a tall gentleman with only one leg, dressed in military uniform. I did not know at the time who this officer was but learned later, that he was General Sickle of Civil war fame. The general gave me a half dollar piece. The lady took my pocket knife and gave me hers which was much better than mine. But as evening approached I had to return to my quarters. Nevertheless, I learned that Americanos were not all like the petty officer who whipped our bare legs and whom had learned to dislike to say the least.
As the voyage advanced we began to get used to the sea, the food, the hammocks, and had learned the technique of relieving ourselves and feeding the fish whenever we felt sick. We were approaching land, the Promised Land, the United States of America, the country about which we had heard such wonderful stories. It was foggy and cold on that last day. The boat whistle kept almost in constant action. We could hardly see a few yards in front of us. It was a raw, cold, foggy day of lower Manhattan, the kind of cold that penetrates the bones. Yet, no arrangement had been made to dress us for this cold weather. We had on nothing but our thin cottons from the tropics. The military put on its heavy winter wear, the ladies got out their fur coats, while we shivered trying to keep our lower jaws in place. Slowly we entered the port of New York, on by the Statue of Liberty until we arrived at Brooklyn, 2 pm. Everything was big, buildings, streets, horses, people. A gentleman by the name of Mr. Thompson, dressed in a cutaway met us. Besides our party of thirty, there was one stowaway, and a mess boy who worked in the transport. They did not know what to do with these two boys so they were included in the party making 31 boys and one girl. We had arrived at last in the United States of America, the land of our dreams, our hopes, the home of the brave and the free – the country over which President McKinley was presiding. We spoke of the president as a semi-god, nothing to be compared with the King of Spain, our former master, for the land on McKinley had defeated in a very brief period our mother country which we had thought invincible. I begin my life as an American.
Works Cited
Aldamuy Denise, Anika (author) and Paola Escobar (illustrator), Sembrando historias:
Pura Belpré: bibliotecaria y narradora de cuentos: Planting Stories: The Life of Librarian and Storyteller Pura Belpre (Spanish edition). NY: Harper Collins Espanol, 2019.
Bay Pimentel, Annette (author) and Magaly Morales (illustrator), Los cuentos de Pura Belpré
/ Pura's Cuentos: How Pura Belpré Reshaped Libraries with Her Stories (Spanish Edition), NYC: Vantage, 2024.
Belpré, Pura (author) and Carlos Sánchez (illustrator), Pérez y Martina; un cuento
folklórico puertorriqueño. NY: FWarned, 1961.
Cabán, Pedro. “The Colonization Mission of the United States in Puerto Rico” (p. 118) in Carlos G. Vélez Ibañez and Anna Sampaio, Transnational Latino Communities: Politics, Processes and Cultures. New York: Rowdman and Littlefield Publishers, 2002.
Cabán, Pedro. “The Colonization Mission of the United States in Puerto Rico” in Carlos
G. Vélez Ibañez and Anna Sampaio, Transnational Latino Communities: Politics, Processes and Cultures. New York: Rowdman and Littlefield Publishers, 2002.
Denis Rosario, Yvonne. Capá Prieto. Río Piedras: Isla Negra Editores, 2009
Dunkelberg , Robert. 119 Osuna.pdf. www.bloomu.edu
Rodríguez, Clara E. Puerto Ricans born in the United States. Boulder, CO: West View
Press, 1991.
Marichal Lugo, Tere (author , La Cucarachita Martina y el Ratoncito Pérez: cuento folclóri-
co puertorriqueño. SJ: Colectivo Contarte, 2019.
Osuna, Juan José. Memois. “An Indian, In Spite of Myself”, unpublished memoirs. Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania, Norris Library Historical Archives, Bloomsbug University of Pennsylvania.
Rodríguez, Clara E. Puerto Ricans born in the United States. Boulder, CO: West View Press, 1991.
Notes
[1] See Clara E. Rodríguez, Puerto Ricans born in the United States. Boulder, CO: West View Press, 1991.
[2] Like the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in PA.
[3] Such as Bloomsburg Normal School, later known as Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. Osuna was one of 45 students who came from Puerto Rico; 11 to graduate.
[4] Puerto Rican migration to the United States has been divided in three stages. 1900-1945: the pioneers who established in NYC; 1946-1964: Great Migration, expanded the barrios; 1965-present: the revolving door migration (Rodríguez 3-4).
[5] In Carlos G. Vélez Ibañez and Anna Sampaio, Transnational Latino Communities: Politics, Processes and Cultures. New York: Rowdman and Littlefield Publishers, 2002.
[6] In Clara E. Rodríguez, Puerto Ricans born in the United States. Boulder, CO: West View Press, 1991. 2 p.
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