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Module 1 (August 24, 220 to October 9, 2020)
Module 1 (August 24, 220 to October 9, 2020)
Thematic Module 1
Thematic Module 1
Afro-Cubans and Afro-Puerto Ricans in New York City: Forging Political Alliances and Identities in Exile (Part 1)
Afro-Cubans and Afro-Puerto Ricans in New York City: Forging Political Alliances and Identities in Exile (Part 1)
Week 1 (08/25/2020) Remote
Required Readings:
Required Readings:
Hoffnung-Garskof, Jesse. 2019. Racial migrations: New York City and the revolutionary politics of the Spanish Caribbean, 1850-1902. Prologue and chapters 1-3.
Interview with the author, Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof in New Books in Caribbean Studies from New Books Network
Primary Sources:
Primary Sources:
Letter of Maceo to the New York Times, February 5 1886
Suggested Readings:
Suggested Readings:
Ferrer, Ada. “Slaves, Insurgents, and Citizens: The early Ten Years’ War, 1868-1870” & "Region, Race, and Transformation in the Ten Years’ War, 1870-1878" in Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868-1898. pp. 15-69.
Afro-Cubans and Afro-Puerto Ricans in New York City: Forging Political Alliances and Identities in Exile (Part 2)
Afro-Cubans and Afro-Puerto Ricans in New York City: Forging Political Alliances and Identities in Exile (Part 2)
Week 2 (09/01/2020) Remote
Required Readings:
Required Readings:
Hoffnung-Garskof, Jesse. 2019. Racial migrations: New York City and the revolutionary politics of the Spanish Caribbean, 1850-1902. Chapters 4-6 and endings.
Primary Sources
Primary Sources
“My Race” José Martí (1893)https://library.brown.edu/create/modernlatinamerica/chapters/chapter-4-cuba/primary-documents-w-accompanying-discussion-questions/documenet-9-my-race-from-patria-1893-jose-marti/
Suggested Readings:
Suggested Readings:
Scarano, Francisco A. “Liberal Pacts and Hierarchies of Rule: Approaching the Imperial Transition in Cuba and Puerto Rico.” Hispanic American Historical Review 78, no. 4 (November 1998): 583-601.
The Spanish-Cuban-American War: The Cuban Scenario (1898)
The Spanish-Cuban-American War: The Cuban Scenario (1898)
Week 3 (09/08/2020) Remote
The Spanish-Cuban-American War marked a new era for U.S.-Cuba and Puerto Rico’s relations. During this week, we will answer the following questions: What economic, political, or Geopolitical interests propelled the U.S. intervention in Cuba? What were the immediate socio-political and economic repercussions? How did the Cuban political elite reacted to this new political moment?
Required Readings:
Required Readings:
Pérez, Louis A. 2015. “Revolution and Intervention” in Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution. Latin American Histories. New York: Oxford University Press.
“Valeriano Weyler: The Butcher” in Tone John Lawrence. 2006. War and Genocide in Cuba, 1895-1898. Envisioning Cuba. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.usf.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=174060&site=eds-live.
"All this We Prefer" & Intimations of Nationality" in Perez, Louis A. 2015. The structure of Cuban history: meanings and purpose of the past. University of North Carolina Press
Primary Sources:
Primary Sources:
President James Monroe, “From President James Monroe's seventh annual message to Congress,” December 2, 1823.
William McKinley Message to Congress on Relations with Spain, April 25, 1898
Theodore Roosevelt's Annual Message to Congress for 1904; House Records HR 58A-K2; Records of the U.S. House of Representatives; Record Group 233; Center for Legislative Archives; National Archives. Here you can find the entire message
Suggested Readings:
Suggested Readings:
Guerra, Lillian. “Mystic, Messiah, and Mediator: Interpreting Martí through Text and Context” in The Myth of Jose Martí: Conflicting Nationalism in Early Twentieth Century Cuba, pp.23-45
The Spanish-Cuban-American War: Puerto Rico as War Booty (1898)
The Spanish-Cuban-American War: Puerto Rico as War Booty (1898)
Week 4 (09/15/2020) Remote
During this week, we will expand our discussion of the effects of the Spanish-Cuban-American War to Puerto Rico. What were the immediate socio-political and economic repercussions in Puerto Rico? How did the Puerto Rican political and economic elite reacted to this new political reality?
Required Readings:
Required Readings:
“1898—Background and Immediate Consequences” pp.14-32 in Ayala, César J., and Rafael Bernabe. 2007. Puerto Rico in the American century: a history since 1898. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Garcia, G. L. 2000. "I Am the Other: Puerto Rico in the Eyes of North Americans, 1898". Journal of American History, Bloomington, 87: 39-64.
Primary Sources:
Primary Sources:
General Nelson Miles, "To the Habitants of Puerto Rico" in The Puerto Ricans: A Documentary History edited by Olga Jimenez & Kal Wagenhein.
"Puerto Rico’s Autonomy", The New York Times, January 5, 1897
Thematic Module 2
Thematic Module 2
Re-shaping the Future: American intervention Puerto Rico, 1898-1933 (I)
Re-shaping the Future: American intervention Puerto Rico, 1898-1933 (I)
Week 5 (09/08/20) Remote
We will examine the new economic and political reconfiguration of Cuban and Puerto Rican societies under the U.S occupation. How did the United States rule over Puerto Rico during the first years of the invasion? How were Puerto Ricans deemed under the U.S. gaze? And finally, how did this historical moment alter the lives of thousands of Puerto Ricans?
Required Readings:
Required Readings:
“Reshaping Puerto Rico’s Economy, 1898-1934” & “Political and Social struggles in a New Colonial Context, 1900-1930”, pp. 33-73 in Ayala, César J., and Rafael Bernabe. 2007. Puerto Rico in the American century: a history since 1898. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Ayala, César J., and Laird W. Bergad. 2020. Agrarian Puerto Rico: reconsidering rural economy and society, 1899-1940. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108763981 [Intro & Chapter 1]
Jiménez, Mónica A. 2020. "Puerto Rico under the colonial gaze: Oppression, resistance and the myth of the nationalist enemy". Latino Studies. 18 (1): 27-44.
Re-shaping the Future: The First Republic (Cuba, 1898-1933)
Re-shaping the Future: The First Republic (Cuba, 1898-1933)
Week 6 (09/15/20) Remote
We will examine the economic, political, and social reconfigurations of Cuban society as a U.S protectorate. How did the United States intervened and influenced Cuban politics during the first years of the twentieth century? How were Cubans deemed under the U.S. gaze? And finally, how did this historical moment alter the lives of Cubans ?
Required Readings:
Required Readings:
"The Structure of the Republic" in Pérez, Louis A. 2015. Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution. Latin American Histories. New York: Oxford University Press.
"Cuba Libre in Crisis" in Guerra, Lillian. 2005. The myth of José Martí: conflicting nationalisms in early twentieth-century Cuba. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press.
Primary Sources:
Primary Sources:
The Platt Amendment, Treaty Between the United States and the Republic of Cuba Embodying the Provisions Defining Their Future Relations as Contained in the Act of Congress, Approved March 2, 1901, signed 05/22/1903; General Records of the United States Government, 1778 - 2006, RG 11, National Archives
Suggested Readings:
Suggested Readings:
Pérez, Louis A. 2008. Cuba in the American imagination: metaphor and the imperial ethos. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. [Selected Chapters]
The Americanization of Puerto Rico, 1898-1930
The Americanization of Puerto Rico, 1898-1930
Week 7 (09/22.20) Remote
After the U.S. occupation of Puerto Rico, the United States sought "civilize" the inhabitants of Puerto Rico by making "Americans" out of them. The United States colonial government made it mandatory for all Puerto Rican children to become fluent in the English language. For the cultured elite, this imposition jeopardized Puerto Rican culture and idiosyncrasy. For the popular classes, the imposition was impractical and burdensome. Why and how did the United States sought to Americanize Puerto Ricans?
Required Reading:
Required Reading:
Americanization and Its Discontents, 1898-1929” & “Cultural Debates in and Epoch of Crisis: National Interpretations in the Thirties”, in Ayala, César J., and Rafael Bernabe. 2007. Puerto Rico in the American century: a history since 1898. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Negotiating Colonialism ‘Race,’ Class, and Education in Early Twentieth-Century Puerto Rico,” in Alfred W. McCoy and Francisco A. Scarano, eds. Colonial Crucible: Empire in the Making of the Modern American State. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009.)
"Attempts at Linguistic Colonization and the struggle to Preserve Spanish Anglicized Words and Expressions and Their Tropes" in Iglesias Utset, Marial, and Russ Davidson. 2011. A cultural history of Cuba during the U.S. occupation, 1898-1902. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. http://site.ebrary.com/id/10468953. [Chapter 3]
Primary Sources:
Primary Sources:
Americanizing Puerto Rico, The New York Times, February 22, 1899
Suggested Readings:
Suggested Readings:
Del Moral, Solsiree. “Colonial Lessons: The Politics of Education in Puerto Rico, 1898- 1930.” The American Historian (May 2018): 40-44.
Module II (October 13, 2020 to November 25, 2020)
Module II (October 13, 2020 to November 25, 2020)
Economic Development and Geopolitical Interest (Puerto Rico, 1930-1960)
Economic Development and Geopolitical Interest (Puerto Rico, 1930-1960)
Week 8 (10/13/20) Face to Face
In the 1940s and 1950s, the Puerto Rican government launched a strategic economic development program that hoped to industrialize Puerto Rico. Operation Bootstrap was a state-led effort that aimed to attract US capital and investment through tax incentives economic policies. These policies also incentivized a massive migration of thousands of Puerto Ricans to the United States as a measure to overcome the "population problem" of the Island. How Operation Bootstrap altered the life of Puerto Ricans? How this new economic development program changed the colonial relation of Puerto Rico with the United States? How can we contextualize this moment in American and global history? What were the immediate consequences of Puerto Rican mass migration to the US?
Required Readings:
Required Readings:
Ayala & Bernabe, “Birth of the Estado Libre Asociado” & "Transformation and Relocation: Puerto Rico’s Operation Bootstrap”, in Ayala, César J., and Rafael Bernabe. 2007. Puerto Rico in the American century: a history since 1898. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. (pp.162-173; 178-198)
Eileen Findlay “Dangerous Dependence or Productive Masculinity? Gendered Representations of Puerto Ricans in the U.S. Press, 1940-50” Radical History Review (May 2017)
Duany, Jorge, “A Postcolonial Colony? The Rise of Cultural Nationalism in Puerto Rico during the 1950s” in The Puerto Rican Nation on the Move: Identities on the Island and in the United States, pp. 122-136
Suggested Readings:
Suggested Readings:
Bolland, O. Nigel. 2011. "Labor Protests, Rebellions, and the Rise of Nationalism During Depression and War". in Scarano Francisco and Stephen Palmie, The Caribbean: A History of the Region and Its Peoples. 459-474.
The declining of Operation Bootstrap (Puerto Rico, 1960-2006)
The declining of Operation Bootstrap (Puerto Rico, 1960-2006)
Week 9 (10/20/20) Remote
In the early 1970s, Operation Bootstrap was showing signs of structural weakness. On the one hand, the oil crisis generated by the 1973 Arab-Israeli conflict highlighted the vulnerability of an economic system dependent on oil and its derivatives. During this conflict, the oil-producing countries, grouped in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), joined forces to restrict the production and distribution of crude oil at the global level. This concerted action destabilized the economies of the Western world. In Puerto Rico, it was the last blow to the government investment in oil refining. The fledgling petrochemical industry fell long before it could alleviate the major problems of a battered colonial economy. On the other hand, other developing countries bet on the Puerto Rican economic model causing a higher degree of competition between increasingly similar economies.
Required Readings:
Required Readings:
"Politics and Culture in Epoch of PPD Hegemony", in Ayala, César J., and Rafael Bernabe. 2007. Puerto Rico in the American century: a history since 1898. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. (pp.162-173; 178-198)
García-Colón, Ismael. 2020. Colonial Migrants at the Heart of Empire: Puerto Rican Workers on U.S. Farms. [Intro, Chapters 1 & 4]
Thematic Module 3
Thematic Module 3
Cuba’s road to Socialism, 1933-1959
Cuba’s road to Socialism, 1933-1959
Week 10 (10/27/20) Face to Face
Discussion questions:
Discussion questions:
Assess the U.S. role in Cuban politics from the 1930s through the 1950s. What were the most significant changes, and what were the underlying continuities?*
*Source: Modern Latin America, 8th Edition Companion Website (This website was developed by students at Brown University working with Professor James N. Green in the course “Modern Latin America” and is hosted by Brown University Libraries)
Required Readings:
Required Readings:
"Reform and Revolution" & The Eclipse of the Old Cuba" in Pérez, Louis A. 2015. Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution. Latin American Histories. New York: Oxford University Press.
Chomsky, Aviva. 2015. A History of the Cuban Revolution. John Wiley & Sons. [Chapters 1]
Alejandra Bronfman, “Batista is Dead! Media, Violence, and Politics in 1950s Cuba,” Caribbean Studies 40:1 (January-June 2012): 37-58
Primary Sources:
Primary Sources:
“History Will Absolve Me,” by Fidel Castro (1953 in Modern Latin America, 8th Edition Companion Website (This website was developed by students at Brown University working with Professor James N. Green in the course “Modern Latin America” and is hosted by Brown University Libraries)
Suggested Readings:
Suggested Readings:
Rivero, Y. M. 2007. "Broadcasting Modernity: Cuban Television, 1950-1953". Cinema Journal. 46, no. 3: 3-25.
Socialist Cuba, 1961-1989
Socialist Cuba, 1961-1989
Week 11 (11/03/20) Remote
The advent of the Cuban Revolution marked a hiatus without precedent in the history of Latin America. A small island, barely ninety miles from the United States, implemented a Socialist government that changed the course of U.S. –Cuban relations up to the present. During this week, we will try to answer the following questions: What were the causes of the Cuban Revolution of 1959? How did the United States react to the rise of Fidel Castro? How can we assess the Cuban Revolution in a broader global context? How did the Cuban Revolution evolve between the initial years up until the dissolution of the U.S.S.R in 1989? To what extent did the Cuban Revolution emerge from social and political conditions on the island—and to what extent was it a singular creation of Fidel Castro?* What was the original rationale for the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba, and what explains its continuation to the present day?*
*Source:Modern Latin America, 8th Edition Companion Website (This website was developed by students at Brown University working with Professor James N. Green in the course “Modern Latin America” and is hosted by Brown University Libraries)
Required Readings:
Required Readings:
Chomsky, Aviva. 2015. A History of the Cuban Revolution. John Wiley & Sons. [Introduction; chapters, 2-4,6]
Guerra, L. 2010. "Gender Policing, Homosexuality and the New Patriarchy of the Cuban Revolution, 1965-70". Social History -London-. 35, no. 3: 268-289.
Fábregas, Johanna I. Moya. 2010. "The Cuban Woman's Revolutionary Experience: Patriarchal Culture and the State's Gender Ideology, 1950-1976". Journal of Women's History. 22 (1): 61-84
Primary Sources
Primary Sources
Che Guevara, “Socialism and Man in Cuba” (1965); in Nicola Foote, Sources for Latin America in the Modern World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019
Oscar Lewis, Ruth Lewis and Susan M. Ridgon, “The ‘Rehabilitation’ of Prostitutes”; Margaret Randall, “The Family Code”,, “Homosexuality, Creativity, Dissidence”, Reynaldo Arenas; in Chomsky, Aviva, Barry Carr, and Pamela María Smorkaloff. 2003. The Cuba Reader. [Electronic Resource]: History, Culture, Politics. Latin America Readers. Duke University Press.
Suggested Readings:
Suggested Readings:
Cleland, Danielle Pilar. 2017. “Institutionalizing Ideology: Race and the Cuban Revolution” in the power of race in Cuba: racial ideology and Black consciousness during the Revolution
de la Fuente, Alejandro. 2001. “Building a Nation for All” in Race, Inequality and Politics in Twentieth-Century Cuba.
Lillian Guerra, Visions of Power in Cuba: Revolution, Redemption, and Resistance, 1959-1971 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2012). [Selected Chapters]
Thematic Module 4
Thematic Module 4
"En el invento": Cuba in the "the Special Period, 1989
"En el invento": Cuba in the "the Special Period, 1989
Week 12 (11/10/20) Face to Face
After the fall of the USSR, Cuba entered what has been called the “special period.” During this time, Cubans endured food shortages and “special” measures to sustain the socialist government. How did the regime deal with the decrease of economic resources and capital to maintain their social, educational, and health achievements?
Required Readings:
Required Readings:
Perez, “Cuba in the Post-Cold War World” in Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution. Latin American Histories. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 293-298; 302-312;315-325
Chomsky, Aviva. 2015. A History of the Cuban Revolution. John Wiley & Sons. [Chapters 7 & 8]
"Anticipation of the Past" & History with a Purpose" in Perez, Louis A. 2015. The structure of Cuban history: meanings and purpose of the past. University of North Carolina Press
Suggested Readings:
Suggested Readings:
David Grann, “The Yankee Comandante: a Story of Love, Revolution, and Betrayal,” The New Yorker, May 28, 2012.
Garcia, José Manuel. 2018. Voices from Mariel: oral histories of the 1980 Cuban boatlift
Cuba's New Revolutionary Popular Culture, 1990
Cuba's New Revolutionary Popular Culture, 1990
Week 13 (11/17/20) Remote
Required Readings:
Required Readings:
Fernandes, Sujatha. 2006. Cuba represent!: Cuban arts, state power, and the making of new revolutionary cultures. Durham: Duke University Press. [Intro, Chapters 1 & 3]
Moore, Robin, “Dance music and the Politics of Fun” in Music and Revolution: Cultural Change in Socialist Cuba, pp. 107-134
Economic Crisis and Political Turmoil in Contemporary Puerto Rico, 2006-2220
Economic Crisis and Political Turmoil in Contemporary Puerto Rico, 2006-2220
Week 14 (11/24/20) Face to Face
Required Readings:
Required Readings:
Fusté, José I. 2017. "Repeating Islands of Debt Historicizing the Transcolonial Relationality of Puerto Rico's Economic Crisis". Radical History Review. 2017 (128): 91-119.
Alyosha Goldstein, "Promises Are Over: Puerto Rico and the Ends of Decolonization". 2016. Theory & Event. 19 (4).
Morales, Ed. 2019. Fantasy Island: Colonialism, Exploitation, and the Betrayal of Puerto Rico. [Intro, Chapters 1, 3-6]
Suggested Readings:
Suggested Readings:
Pabon, Carlos, “The political Status of Puerto Rico: A Nonsense Dilema” in None of the Above:Puerto Ricans in the Global Era, pp. 66-72
Duffy Burnett, Christina, “‘None of the Above’ Means More of the Same: Why Solving Puerto Rico’s Status Problem Matters” In None of the Above: Puerto Ricans in the Global Era, pp.73-83
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