01/14/2025
By Nephtaly Pierre-Louis

The Rev. Dana McLean Greeley Fellowship for Peace Studies presents "Puerto Rico at the Center: Challenges to Empire and Americanization through Schooling" by Solsiree del Moral, an Amherst College professor. The hybrid presentation is part of the 2024-25 Speaker Series, "Confronting Empire, Forging Transnational Justice."

The presentation is free and open to the public.

Date: Tuesday, Jan. 28
Time: 11–12:30 p.m. EST
Venue: Coburn 255, 850 Broadway St.
Attend in person or join the livestream.

Abstract: The United States came second. Spain was there first. The U.S. colonialism of 1898 was not new. It was just the latest version. Puerto Rico had already experienced 400 years of Spanish colonialism. The new generation of public school teachers in the early-twentieth century was ready to face the latest attempt to carry out cultural genocide through colonial schools. They put a stop to it. In this talk, we revisit the history and legacies of U.S. empire, race and education in early 20th century Puerto Rico.

Bio: Solsiree del Moral, author of Negotiating Empire: The Cultural Politics of School in Puerto Rico (2013), is professor of American studies and Black studies at Amherst College. She is a historian of modern Latin America and the Caribbean, with a focus on Puerto Rico, the circum-Caribbean, and U.S. colonialism. Dr. del Moral’s research and teaching have been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), the Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship (FLAS), the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE), as well as Columbia University, Pennsylvania State University and the University of Wisconsin.

Sponsored by Rev. Dana McLean Greeley Fellowship for Peace Studies at UMass Lowell and College of Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.