Visualizing Afro-Dignity: Scrutinizing Puerto Rican Elementary History Textbooks for Racial Justice

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

The session “Visualizing Afro-Dignity” is an initiative that scrutinizes how Puerto Rican elementary textbooks can reproduce but also challenge racial hierarchies. Using qualitative and quantitative methodologies, this interdisciplinary session will evidence the prevalence of eurocentrism, colorism, and anti-blackness in the social science elementary textbooks used in the Puerto Rico public school system. Presentations will examine textbook illustrations that dehumanize and distance Puerto Rican students from their afrodescendency, while reproducing narratives of mestizaje that delegitimize anti-black racism in Puerto Rico. As well, the panel will discuss the initiative of developing an anti-racist guide for textbook publishers and the challenges & opportunities for its implementation as identified in interviews conducted with four main textbook publishing houses.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 3: Languages, Literacies, and Representations

Chair

• Isar Pilar Godreau, Universidad de Puerto Rico en Cayey

Papers

• Dehumanizing Narratives of Slavery in Textbook Illustrations - Anais Couvertier Garay, University of Puerto Rico

• Invisibilizing Black Resistance to Slavery: An Examination of Textbooks' Visual and Content Narratives - Gabriela Ortiz Laureano, University of Puerto Rico - Cayey

• Colorism and Contemporary Representations of Puerto Rican Society in Textbooks - Alaila L. Serrano-Gonzalez, Universidad de Puerto Rico en Cayey; Aidyl Hernandez

• The Antiracist Guide: Challenges and Opportunities From Textbook Publishers - María B. Serrano-Abreu, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Fabiola Edmar Zayas-Torres, Universidad de Puerto Rico en Cayey