Floating migration, education, and globalization in the US Caribbean

Abstract

This article follows a research project that collects oral histories of bilingual education teachers from Puerto Rico who migrated to the US Virgin Islands in the late twentieth century. The teachers’ oral histories are used as a case study that provides in-depth analysis of competing discourses related to education and globalization in these two US Caribbean territories. The paper begins by examining intersections between migration and globalization in the Caribbean. Analysis of oral teachers’ accounts of events experienced in both islands is provided, with a focus on how they dealt with tensions tied to floating migration, constructions of “otherness,” language use, and racial formations in their articulation of transnational identities and cultural differences.

Keywords:

• floating migrations
• US Caribbean territories
• education
• globalization
• language use

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education for their feedback and suggestions. They express their appreciation to Denni Blum and Char Ullman for their extraordinarily helpful feedback on an earlier draft. Thanks also to Aitza Maldonado-Martich. Portions of this research were funded by the University of Puerto Rico Institutional Fund for Academic Research (Fondo Institucional para la Investigación, Universidad de Puerto Rico).

Notes

1. “Boricuas Abroad” is a term used to identify Puerto Rican migrants in the US and their descendants.

2. See Appendix 1.