Erasure and resistance: the state of public education in Puerto Rico

Abstract

In April 2018, somebody painted over a mural in the Julia de Burgos public school’s cafeteria, turning the wall into a blank, off-white slate. The mural’s erasure symbolically encapsulates a combination of forces that are behind the radical transformation of public schools and colleges in Puerto Rico: the colonial relationship the island has with the United States after the latter took possession of it in 1898; Puerto Rico’s unpayable debt, partly triggered and exacerbated precisely by its colonial condition; and the takeover of the island by disaster capitalism in the wake of the debt default and hurricanes Irma and Maria.

Keywords:

• Puerto Rico
• disaster capitalism
• debt
• colonialism
• education
• public education
• human rights

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 “Rio Grande de Loiza!… Great river. Great flood of tears.

The greatest of all our island’s tears…” reads this portion of the poem, as translated by Jack Agüeros.

2 We discuss this series of events, and their impact on the public educational system, in Brusi and Godreau (2019).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rima Brusi

Rima Brusi is an anthropologist, essayist, advocate and educator. Formerly a faculty member at the University of Puerto Rico and an applied anthropologist at The Education Trust, she is currently a Distinguished Lecturer in Anthropology and a Scholar-In-Residence at the Center for Human Rights and Peace Studies at CUNY-Lehman College.