Schools as Sites for Agency in 20th-Century Latin America

AHA Session 22
Conference on Latin American History 5
Thursday, January 5, 2023: 1:30 PM-3:00 PM
Room 410 (Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, 4th Floor)
Chair:
G. Antonio Espinoza, Virginia Commonwealth University
Papers:
A Laboratory for Democracy: Feminist Teachers and School Reforms at the Beginning of the 20th Century in Argentina
Sabrina González, University of Maryland, College Park
“No Division by Color; Considered Impracticable”: Afro-Descendants in Cuban Schools during the United States Occupation, 1898–1902
Raquel Alicia Otheguy, Bronx Community College, City University of New York
Negotiating Dominican Citizenship: Guardians and the 1916 US Occupation
Alexa Rodríguez, University of Virginia
Victory on Campus, Crisis in the Independence Movement: The Resolution of Anti-ROTC Conflict in the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, 1970–71
Aura S. Jirau Arroyo, Eastern Illinois University
Comment:
G. Antonio Espinoza, Virginia Commonwealth University

Session Abstract

Since the nineteenth century, schools as have played a significant role in the development of Latin American societies. They have served as the terrain where actors have engaged in vibrant political discourses, negotiated both civic rights and societal expectations, in addition to contesting colonial and imperialist policies. Spanning the Southern Cone through the Caribbean, this session explores how K-12 schools and universities alike have brought together individuals who were marginalized by race, class, gender, or political ideologies. They highlight how despite their limited power, teachers, parents, and students in Argentina, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico used schools to advocate for themselves and others in an attempt to reshape their society. Doing so, these papers reveal that schools have been essential political spaces for activism and the cultivation of counterdiscourses in the region. They also demonstrate that by examining schools, historians are provided a window into broader debates during various points in time, and most notably, offered opportunities to narrate histories from the perspectives of those on the ground.
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