After three years in development, The Center for Puerto Rican Studies (CENTRO) at Hunter College is excited to announce its new Diasporican Educational Program, teaching the social history of the Puerto Rican Diaspora across borders, languages, identities, histories, and more. The program offers an adaptable curriculum for classrooms and can also be used as a self-guided format. The self-guided course will be available on November 12. Interested individuals can head to diasporicaned.org to sign up now.
Made possible by a multi-year grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), the curriculum, titled Reframing Puerto Rican Diasporas, was developed by educational experts and researchers at CENTRO to utilize and build upon the 50+ years of scholarship and research within the institution. Each unit of the curriculum includes original illustrated videos narrated by actress Sonia Manzano alongside supporting materials from CENTRO, such as archival materials and data reports.
While framed specifically around Puerto Rico and its many diasporas, the curriculum is also broadly applicable for instruction in using primary sources and exploring archival collections while applying critical thinking. It challenges misconceptions about identity and culture, and explores concepts of identity and belonging. This comprehensive curriculum is designed for educators, caretakers, students of all ages, lifelong learners, and anyone curious about Puerto Rico alike—regardless of their familiarity (or not) with Puerto Rico and its history.
“This grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission has provided the opportunity for us to create a rigorous and culturally sustaining curriculum on Puerto Rico and its diasporas. These lessons illuminate our history, culture, struggles, and accomplishments. We hope that people of all ages become inspired by Boricua history and take advantage of all this curriculum has to offer,” Dr. Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez, CENTRO’s Directora, said.
“We hope this curriculum amplifies and reframes the history and culture of Diasporicans while providing agentic educational opportunities for all learners to examine experiences around identity, language, symbols, citizenship, community, migration, and borders for a better understanding of the issues that matter to us all,” Daicy Diaz-Granados, CENTRO’s Director of Education, said.
The adaptable curriculum can be easily integrated into existing courses—either partially or as a dedicated unit—and is recommended for educators at the high school and undergraduate levels.
Each unit includes:
- Ready-to-use instructor lesson plans
- Ready-to-print + customizable worksheets
- Original illustrated videos narrated by Sonia Manzano
- Multi-media + archival resources
- Source Lists
The curriculum includes the following units:
- Using and Understanding Primary Sources
This unit is designed to focus on developing important skills for exploring history through firsthand, primary-source materials. Drawing from CENTRO’s extensive archival collection, the curriculum showcases a variety of primary sources that are used to illustrate individual and collective experiences, and offers opportunities for learning how to identify, analyze, and contextualize primary sources, for gaining a deeper understanding of the themes and stories shared throughout the lessons in this curriculum.
- Rethinking Puerto Rican Identity and Language
The goal of this unit is for students to understand diaspora is not a fixed category nor a homogenizing identity but a complicated process in which individuals are prompted to question limiting ideas about language and identity to make sense of themselves in a new context.
- Untangling the Complexities of Puerto Ricans’ Citizenship
This unit explores the colonial policies of the 20th century, how the U.S. became an empire, the legal category of “citizenship,” and the implications of the latter for Puerto Ricans in terms of their civil, political, and social rights.
- Reimagining the Great Puerto Rican Family
This unit critically examines the notion of “la Gran Familia Puertorriqueña.” It explains the relation of this concept and the racial homogenization of Puerto Ricans (mestizaje) within a social hierarchy (blanqueamiento). It also introduces a feminist critique of Puerto Rico’s gendered project of modernity. It shows how the making of “responsible fathers” and “economically supportive mothers” helped political leaders reorganize Puerto Rican families while promoting migration.
- Reinterpreting Puerto Rican Signs
Based on the idea that culture is symbolic behavior organized through signs, this unit demonstrates how the Puerto Rican Diaspora reworked important signs and popular discourses about racial democracy, migration, linguistic purity, and national symbols to make them more attuned to their diasporic experience.
- Reconfiguring Puerto Rico’s Cultural and Geographic Borders
This unit studies the notions of borders, borderlands, and belonging to understand Puerto Ricans’ experiences of displacement as an alternative and resilient form of community-building outside the Puerto Rican archipelago.
Educators and individuals looking to learn more about the curriculum or the self-guided course can sign up at diasporicaned.org. The course will go live on November 12.