BAR Book Forum: Milagros Denis-Rosario’s Book, “Drops of Inclusivity”

Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor

02 Aug 2023

In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Milagros Denis-Rosario. Denis-Rosario is Associate Professor of History in the Department of Africana, Puerto Rican, and Latino Studies at Hunter College of the City University of New York. Her book is Drops of Inclusivity: Racial Formations and Meanings in Puerto Rican Society, 1898-1965.

Roberto Sirvent: How can your book help BAR readers understand the current political and social climate?

Milagros Denis-Rosario: Drops of Inclusivity focuses on the issue of race and racism in Puerto Rican society during the first half of the 20th century. Right after the Spanish-American War of 1898, Puerto Rico entered into a complex political relationship with the United States. Since then, Puerto Ricans’ perception of race/racism became informed by the new colonial status. It added a new dimension to the already existing Spanish colonial legacy with race. In different ways, both colonial structures created, enforced, and perpetuated a racial hierarchy where a person who is Black or Afro-descendant is subcategorized. In addition, Puerto Ricans, who are proud of their culture and supposedly mix with Taino-Indian, African and Spanish, ironically exhibit anti-black attitudes against fellow Afro-Puerto Ricans. Paradoxically, there is a denial about racism because people tend to compare Puerto Rico's brand of racism with the United States and assume that on the island, there is no segregation and racism is not institutionalized. The examples presented in the book prove the contrary. The book looks at how Black Puerto Ricans configured and navigated the exclusionary system, found ways to take advantage of “racially motivated” opportunities to improve their socio-economic condition, and seized them by making a name for themselves and asserting their rights. These opportunities ranged from getting an education in African American institutions (HBCUs), running for political office, creating advocacy organizations, and establishing alliances with political figures to assist their communities. Simultaneously, political leaders, intellectuals, and labor leaders, among others, developed their narrative either against racism or other fostered ideas about racial harmony or racial democracy that obscured general notions of being a racist society. In today’s political climate, the case of Puerto Rico is an excellent example of how race and racism operate in a place with close ties with the United States.

What do you hope activists and community organizers will take away from reading your book?

Due to different circumstances, Puerto Ricans migrate to the US to get a formal education or work. Regardless of the cases, they encountered or approached racism differently. For instance, in chapter two, the book analyses the experiences of Dr. José C. Barbosa, who was an Afro-descendant and earned a medical degree from the University of Michigan in 1880. Interestingly, the middle-class African American experience in United States’ northern states strongly influenced him. When he returned to Puerto Rico and practiced medicine, he became a political leader and founded the Republican Party. Barbosa kept abreast with African American liberation movement, publications, and leadership. For instance, he was a regular reader of The Crisis, which was the magazine of the NAACP. Based on his experience in Michigan, Barbosa became a proponent of the idea that education could be a determining factor for Black Puerto Ricans to repel racism. Another example discussed in the book is in the 1930s, when Juan Falú Zarzuela (chapter 3), probably inspired by the NAACP, founded the Liga para el Progreso de los Negros en Puerto Rico (League to Promote the Advancement of Blacks in Puerto Rico). He became a political and social activist. Falú Zarzuela, through the local media, exposed the exclusion of Black Puerto Ricans from the island’s economic development project (chapter 6). These few examples illustrate that Black Puerto Ricans, within the political framework of American rule, were influenced by African American struggles for liberation and adapted their strategies to the realities of the island.

Therefore, activists and community organizers can establish a more informed approach to issues affecting Afro-Latinx communities by using the case of Puerto Ricans as an example to contextualize the racial dynamics among Afro-Latinos and Afro-Latin American immigrants. Furthermore, since Afro-Latinos and Afro-Latin Americans share a very similar Spanish colonial legacy, it would help activists and community leaders to develop a more contextualized outreach and, therefore, engage other Afro-descendants. Thus, establishing a more inclusive and cohesive coalition to address issues affecting their communities.

We know readers will learn a lot from your book, but what do you hope readers will un-learn? In other words, is there a particular ideology you’re hoping to dismantle?

My book deals with a sensitive theme. I am a scholar motivated to document and share the island’s history constructively by highlighting historical facts about when the Americans invaded the island to the period of modernization. While all that took place, the nation-building narrative created a Spanish/European sense of Puerto Ricaness while excluding others. When reading about politics and social issues on the island, most people need to learn how the anti-blackness rhetoric permeates the island. My book gives voices to those who, in their way, challenged racial exclusion. These struggles were led openly or silently by men and women whose lives and deeds opened the doors for the upcoming generations. I want the readers to pay attention to that and how those excluded asserted their Blackness with dignity and determination. Each one of the cases discussed in the book symbolizes a “drop of inclusion.” Gota a gota se llena el vaso. Little by little, you fill the glass.

Which intellectuals and/or intellectual movements most inspire your work?

While in graduate school, the scholarship about the Puerto Rican labor movement of the turn of the 20th century draw my interest. By then, I realized that many critical leaders were Blacks. Despite the politics and the transition from an agricultural mode of production to a more industrial and capitalist system, in Puerto Rico, some labor leaders, who in the great majority were mulattoes, found ways to denounce injustices while affirming Blackness. Good examples are Ramón Romero Rosa (chapter 1) and even Dr. Barbosa, who defended the cause of the working class.

My interest in African Diasporic studies informed my view on the ways and strategies employed by Black communities in the African continent, the Caribbean, and the Americas, to the different forms of oppression operating in their communities. I won’t deny that the African American civil rights movement and the new manifestations against racial and social injustices have inspired me not only in my thinking but to develop a more comparative perspective about racism and the measures and actions against it. Also, while studying at Howard University, I was immersed in many readings and autobiographies from African and African Americans. Most recently, I have been following the networks of Afro-Latin Americans contesting different forms of exclusion in their countries. An exciting development there is that many of these activists are females. Nevertheless, they have managed to integrate the perspective of intersectionality into their analysis. Therefore, their methods to end racism and gender inequality are very comprehensive.

Which two books published in the last five years would you recommend to BAR readers? How do you envision engaging these titles in your future work?

To channel the intellectual rigidity of the academia, I like to read historical novels or biographies. Currently, I am reading he novel A Women of Endurance (Amistad 35, 2022) by Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa. It is a sequel to her first book, Daughters of the Stone (2nd edition, 2019), Llanos-Figueroa, in a brilliant, firmly historically founded, gives voices to enslaved Afro-Puerto Ricans. She humanizes enslaved people through the story of an African captive named Pola. For those who are strongly versed in the subject of African-American slavery, reading the book will help to establish comparisons and, to a certain degree, understand how slavery and racism are connected n Puerto Rican society. But, more importantly, the denial and rejection of being an Afro-descendant.

Another exciting reading, published in Spanish and English, is My Time to Speak: Reclaiming Ancestry and Confronting Race (Atria Books, 2020) by Ilia Calderón. She made history a few years ago when she became the first Afro-Latina anchorwoman in a Hispanic network (Univisión). The book is an autobiographical journey from her childhood in her beloved Chocó, Colombia’s Pacific coast, to her settlement in the United States. She narrates that she encountered geographical racism, sexism, class, and racial discrimination. However, she does not sugarcoat race relations in Colombia.

On the contrary, her experience is a testament to the fact that Colombian society is very exclusive. When arriving in the United States, Calderón encounters a more blatant racial system, including Latino communities. Her experience in Colombia prepared her to navigate and negotiate the different layers of racial exclusion in Latino media. As a result, she is now one of the top journalists in the field.

Any educator in literature, Latino studies, comparative slavery, and Latin American studies can integrate the books mentioned above into their classes.

Roberto Sirvent is editor of the Black Agenda Report Book Forum.

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