Epistemic and ontological shifts in the making: (re)defining the episteme of Puerto Rico’s education at the turn of the twentieth century

Abstract

ABSTRACT At the turn of the twentieth century, conceptualizing the Puerto Rican child and the Puerto Rican citizen took on discourses of difference that were steeped in Progressive Era rationalities about eugenics that embodied normalized beliefs about “ability” and “fitness” traveling between the United States and Puerto Rico. These epistemic and ontological shifts in the making were not only about developing the intellectual strengths of Puerto Rican students; they were also about creating a particular “type” of student for US statehood. Discourses of race, intelligence, hygiene and morality were incorporated into the languaging of the Senate Bill 2254 Committee Hearings. These discourses of difference were also part of the rationale for enacting and marking difference under Puerto Rico’s new school laws. Moreover, these discursive formations circulating in Puerto Rican education and society created a set of principles of regulation and observation that was used to rationalize biological determinants for citizenship. Central to deciding Puerto Rico’s legal, political and educational future was the scrutiny of the moral, intellectual, racial, hygienic, economic and educational conditions of Puerto Rican students.