Example research essay topic: Cultural Activities In Puerto Rico - 1,181 words

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Cultural Activities in Puerto Rico In her book Sponsored Identities, Arlene M. Davila discusses the dynamics of cultural politics in Puerto Rican society. She examines how culture and cultural nationalism have been used to promote consumer goods and political viewpoints. Arlene Davila asserts that cultural nationalism has been used by corporate advertisers to promote consumer goods (Davila 1997: 7).

Similarly, the parana has been used as an advertising tool. Images related to the parana are being used to sell compact discs, hamburgers and snack foods. Images of the jivaro engaged in musical activity saturate television, festivals, and concerts during the Christmas season. Instruments associated with the parana, in particular, are capitalized upon. Local drugstores and large American chains like Walmart, sell pre-packaged parana kits containing traditional instruments of poor quality. Often they contain a guide, pay (scraper), maraca, palings (literally small sticks, similar to the clave's), and miniature panderers with tambourine-like jingles.

In Walmart, the set is packaged in a transparent plastic backpack so that it can be placed on ones back while participating in a parana. At Wendy's one can purchase maracas parranderas, literally maracas for a parana, for only $ 1. 99 with the purchase of a combo meal. Now everybody loves Puerto Rican culture, says a Puerto Rican schoolteacher and festival organizer, but thats exactly the problem. Thus begins this major examination of cultural nationalism as a political construct involving party ideologies, corporate economic goals, and grassroots cultural groups. Author Arlene Davila focuses on the Institute for Puerto Rican Culture, the government institution charged with defining authenticated views of national identity since the 1950 s, and on popular festival organizers to illuminate contestations over appropriate representations of culture in the increasingly mass-mediated context of contemporary Puerto Rico.

She examines the creation of an essentialist view of nationhood based on a peasant culture and a unifying Hispanic heritage, and the ways in which grassroots organizations challenge and reconfigure definitions of national identity through their own activities and representations. Davila pays particular attention to the increasing prominence of corporate sponsorship in determining what is distinguished as authentic Puerto Rican culture and discusses the politicization of culture as a discourse to debate and legitimize conflicting claims from selling commercial products to advocating divergent status options for the island. In so doing, Davila illuminates the prospects for cultural identities in an increasingly transnational context by showing the growth of cultural nationalism to be intrinsically connected to forms of political action directed to the realm of culture and cultural politics. This in-depth examination also makes clear that despite contemporary concerns with authenticity, commercialism is an inescapable aspect of all cultural expressions on the island. After World War Two, the United States asserted its colonial power over Puerto Rico through a campaign to modernize the islands economy. This project, known as Operation Bootstrap, had a profound effect on Puerto Rican society.

It caused the dismantling of small agricultural operations in favor of large-scale industry. It lead to a mass migration from the interior countryside to the coastal cities, and ultimately, for millions, to the United States. These migrations lead to a breakdown of the traditional agrarian society. As a result of the operation, a great cultural change occurred.

As the leisure time of workers decreased, activities such as serenading and folk music performance also decreased. In addition, many urban Puerto Ricans traded the traditional music and celebrations of the mountains for their more urban and American counterparts. The symbolic relationships of Christmas in Puerto Rico changed irrevocably during this time. The peasant farmers traditional music and traditions declined in the face of growing American commercial, industrial, and cultural influence. Only at the most festive time of year, Christmas, did these traditions persist along side their religious and celebratory variations.

Through the continual co-occurrence of pre-Bootstrap folk traditions and the Christmas season, Christmas became an index for folk music and traditions. In addition, as Puerto Rican society became more secular and Americanized, the parranda's religious symbolism became less important than its social potential. Its music also shifted from religious themes to descriptions of Christmas celebrations. These transitions were facilitated by Puerto Rican folk musics inherent flexibility. Since the music of the trova dor is intended to be malleable enough to encompass new themes and stories, it came to reflect the social rather than the religious aspects of Christmas celebration. In 1952, with Operation Bootstrap underway, Puerto Rico's political status was altered.

Amid debate over the political future of Puerto Rico, with independence on one side and statehood its alternative; commonwealth status was enacted as a compromise. This turned Puerto Rico into a free associated state of the United States. This act provided local political autonomy while maintaining the islands colonial relationship with the United States. Luis Munoz Marin, the champion of the commonwealth idea, became the commonwealths first Governor. Turning away from the struggle for political nationalism, Munoz enacted a policy of cultural nationalism.

He promoted the nation as a cultural unit defined by a common cultural identity. These views were facilitated through policy known as Operation Serenity. This policy was designed as the social counterpart to Operation Bootstrap. As part of Operation Serenity, the Institute de Cultura Puertorriqueno, commonly known as the ICP was founded. This organization was designed to define Puerto Rican culture and defend it against foreign influence. The centerpiece of the ICP campaign is what has been referred to as the blending myth of Puerto Rican identity (Davila 1997: 69 - 73).

This myth espouses a harmonious integration of the Taino, African and Spanish cultures, giving rise to the highly romanticized jivaro. According to this narrative Spanish culture provided Puerto Rico with its religion and language along with wood carvings of the saints, Spanish lace, and an architectural legacy. When the three roots are visually depicted the Spanish conquistador is positioned at the center of the triad. The Taino adds temporal depth to the national myth by representing the nations roots in the past while supplying continuity to the present which is essential for establishing the legitimacy of a nationalist ideology (Davila 1997: 70).

Although the Taino were considered extinct by the middle of the eighteenth century, they provide an important link to the territory upon which the nation is founded. The African component has often been referred to as the third root because it was the last to arrive. African contributions to Puerto Rican culture are downplayed and often attributed to the Taino. Food, music, and racial make-up that ought to be attributed to the African component are often claimed to be Taino instead (Day 2003: 279 - 280). As a result of this hierarchy, Afro-Puerto Rican musical genres, such as the bomba and the plena, have experienced less nationalistic appeal. While more Iberocentric genres became symbolic of the Puerto Rican nation, Afro-Puerto Rican genres, through their exclusion, have come to represent a discrete African component of Puerto Rican culture rather than their integration and interaction within the whole of Puerto Rican society.

Bibliography: Davila, Arlene M. : Sponsored Identities, Cultural Politics in Puerto Rico. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997.

Research essay sample on Cultural Activities In Puerto Rico