RAFAEL OCASIO is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Spanish at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, Georgia.

• List of IllustrationsIntroduction: Retention and Reinvention of Puerto Rican Oral Folklore Tales                             1          Porto Rico as a Colonial Scientific Laboratory: Documenting Puerto Rican Oral FolklorePart I: The Island of Porto Rico in the U.S. Public EyePart II: Identifying Porto Rican Folklore: The Compilation Process                                             2          A Post-Spanish American War National Identity: Editing Puerto Rican Folktales in a Socio-Political Vacuum                      Part I: Arguing about La Raza and a Native Puerto Rican CulturePart II: Editing in a Socio-Political Vacuum: Personal and Professional Differences          3          Jíbaros' Authorship through Self-Literary Characterization Part I: A Countryside-inspired Folklore through Jíbaros' AuthorshipPart II: Juan Bobo and Other Native Picaresque Characters: Surviving the Rural Campo   4          Telling a Story about Class and Ethnicity through Fairy Tales, Cuentos puertorriqueños and LeyendasPart I: Expressing Jíbaro Cultural Values through Native Oral FolklorePart II: El campo as a Site of Puerto Rican Identity in Cuentos de encantamiento, Cuentos puertorriqueños and Leyendas puertorriqueñas                                                                           5          An (Un)colored Puerto Rican Culture: Unpublished Negro Fieldwork in Old LoízaPart I: Loíza as a Site of an Afro-Puerto Rican CulturePart II: Reconstructing A Post-Slavery Afro-Puerto Rican Popular Folklore: The Unpublished Field Notes                                6          Tropicalizing the Puerto Rican Racial Past: The Quest of an Indian Area                           ConclusionAcknowledgments      NotesBibliography                                                                                                                   Index

"Race and Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore is a must-read for those interested in the cultural layout of early twentieth-century Puerto Rico and its burgeoning, sociopolitical consciousness. Ocasio expertly traces the multicultural artifacts of oral transmission collected by 'the Father of American Anthropology,' Franz Boas and his mentee, John Alden Mason, on the Island at the turn of the century, revealing the relationship between those texts and Boricua identity."— Angie Willis, co-author of forthcoming Reinaldo Arenas, Pedagogue: Readings for a Post-Fidel Castro Era"Rafael Ocasio's Race and Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore will be of significant interest to students of Puerto Rican culture and history as it skillfully revives important events involving the U.S. and Puerto Rico that have lost definition with the passing of time, even if they have not lost relevance. The author brings to bear on an anthropological topic his unique talent for literary and cultural criticism."— Rudyard Alcocer, author of Time Travel in the Latin American & Caribbean Imagination: Re-reading History"Race and Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore fills in gaps both in the historiography of Puerto Rican cultural history and in the history of folkloristics in the United States. Necessary and timely issues of race, colonialism, and class as they affected the collecting and editing processes are addressed in detail. Issues of gender inequality and the effects of not including adult women in the collection, are mentioned but not unpacked at the same level."— Journal of Folklore Research"Greyhound Grad Publishes Two Books Focused on Puerto Rican Folklore," by Desiree Cooper— Eastern New Mexico University"For all these dazzling discoveries made with academic and intellectual rigor, you have to read this new book by Rafael Ocasio. I read it with interest, with amazement and, above all, with gratitude."— Centro Journal"Race & Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore, Ocasio, then, makes his impact on the future of his island, as well as on a future in which we study and document small, still colonized, nations, and by doing so state that they are not expendable. That no nation is."— South Atlantic Review"Race and Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore is a must-read for those interested in the cultural layout of early twentieth-century Puerto Rico and its burgeoning, sociopolitical consciousness. Ocasio expertly traces the multicultural artifacts of oral transmission collected by 'the Father of American Anthropology,' Franz Boas and his mentee, John Alden Mason, on the Island at the turn of the century, revealing the relationship between those texts and Boricua identity."— Angie Willis, co-author of forthcoming Reinaldo Arenas, Pedagogue: Readings for a Post-Fidel Castro Era"Rafael Ocasio's Race and Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore will be of significant interest to students of Puerto Rican culture and history as it skillfully revives important events involving the U.S. and Puerto Rico that have lost definition with the passing of time, even if they have not lost relevance. The author brings to bear on an anthropological topic his unique talent for literary and cultural criticism."— Rudyard Alcocer, author of Time Travel in the Latin American & Caribbean Imagination: Re-reading History"For all these dazzling discoveries made with academic and intellectual rigor, you have to read this new book by Rafael Ocasio. I read it with interest, with amazement and, above all, with gratitude."— Centro Journal"Greyhound Grad Publishes Two Books Focused on Puerto Rican Folklore," by Desiree Cooper— Eastern New Mexico University"Race and Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore fills in gaps both in the historiography of Puerto Rican cultural history and in the history of folkloristics in the United States. Necessary and timely issues of race, colonialism, and class as they affected the collecting and editing processes are addressed in detail. Issues of gender inequality and the effects of not including adult women in the collection, are mentioned but not unpacked at the same level."— Journal of Folklore Research"Race Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore, Ocasio, then, makes his impact on the future of his island, as well as on a future in which we study and document small, still colonized, nations, and by doing so state that they are not expendable. That no nation is."— South Atlantic Review

RAFAEL OCASIO is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Spanish at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, Georgia.

• List of IllustrationsIntroduction: Retention and Reinvention of Puerto Rican Oral Folklore Tales                             1          Porto Rico as a Colonial Scientific Laboratory: Documenting Puerto Rican Oral FolklorePart I: The Island of Porto Rico in the U.S. Public EyePart II: Identifying Porto Rican Folklore: The Compilation Process                                             2          A Post-Spanish American War National Identity: Editing Puerto Rican Folktales in a Socio-Political Vacuum                      Part I: Arguing about La Raza and a Native Puerto Rican CulturePart II: Editing in a Socio-Political Vacuum: Personal and Professional Differences          3          Jíbaros' Authorship through Self-Literary Characterization Part I: A Countryside-inspired Folklore through Jíbaros' AuthorshipPart II: Juan Bobo and Other Native Picaresque Characters: Surviving the Rural Campo   4          Telling a Story about Class and Ethnicity through Fairy Tales, Cuentos puertorriqueños and LeyendasPart I: Expressing Jíbaro Cultural Values through Native Oral FolklorePart II: El campo as a Site of Puerto Rican Identity in Cuentos de encantamiento, Cuentos puertorriqueños and Leyendas puertorriqueñas                                                                           5          An (Un)colored Puerto Rican Culture: Unpublished Negro Fieldwork in Old LoízaPart I: Loíza as a Site of an Afro-Puerto Rican CulturePart II: Reconstructing A Post-Slavery Afro-Puerto Rican Popular Folklore: The Unpublished Field Notes                                6          Tropicalizing the Puerto Rican Racial Past: The Quest of an Indian Area                           ConclusionAcknowledgments      NotesBibliography                                                                                                                   Index

"Race and Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore is a must-read for those interested in the cultural layout of early twentieth-century Puerto Rico and its burgeoning, sociopolitical consciousness. Ocasio expertly traces the multicultural artifacts of oral transmission collected by 'the Father of American Anthropology,' Franz Boas and his mentee, John Alden Mason, on the Island at the turn of the century, revealing the relationship between those texts and Boricua identity."— Angie Willis, co-author of forthcoming Reinaldo Arenas, Pedagogue: Readings for a Post-Fidel Castro Era"Rafael Ocasio's Race and Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore will be of significant interest to students of Puerto Rican culture and history as it skillfully revives important events involving the U.S. and Puerto Rico that have lost definition with the passing of time, even if they have not lost relevance. The author brings to bear on an anthropological topic his unique talent for literary and cultural criticism."— Rudyard Alcocer, author of Time Travel in the Latin American & Caribbean Imagination: Re-reading History"Race and Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore fills in gaps both in the historiography of Puerto Rican cultural history and in the history of folkloristics in the United States. Necessary and timely issues of race, colonialism, and class as they affected the collecting and editing processes are addressed in detail. Issues of gender inequality and the effects of not including adult women in the collection, are mentioned but not unpacked at the same level."— Journal of Folklore Research"Greyhound Grad Publishes Two Books Focused on Puerto Rican Folklore," by Desiree Cooper— Eastern New Mexico University"For all these dazzling discoveries made with academic and intellectual rigor, you have to read this new book by Rafael Ocasio. I read it with interest, with amazement and, above all, with gratitude."— Centro Journal"Race & Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore, Ocasio, then, makes his impact on the future of his island, as well as on a future in which we study and document small, still colonized, nations, and by doing so state that they are not expendable. That no nation is."— South Atlantic Review"Race and Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore is a must-read for those interested in the cultural layout of early twentieth-century Puerto Rico and its burgeoning, sociopolitical consciousness. Ocasio expertly traces the multicultural artifacts of oral transmission collected by 'the Father of American Anthropology,' Franz Boas and his mentee, John Alden Mason, on the Island at the turn of the century, revealing the relationship between those texts and Boricua identity."— Angie Willis, co-author of forthcoming Reinaldo Arenas, Pedagogue: Readings for a Post-Fidel Castro Era"Rafael Ocasio's Race and Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore will be of significant interest to students of Puerto Rican culture and history as it skillfully revives important events involving the U.S. and Puerto Rico that have lost definition with the passing of time, even if they have not lost relevance. The author brings to bear on an anthropological topic his unique talent for literary and cultural criticism."— Rudyard Alcocer, author of Time Travel in the Latin American & Caribbean Imagination: Re-reading History"For all these dazzling discoveries made with academic and intellectual rigor, you have to read this new book by Rafael Ocasio. I read it with interest, with amazement and, above all, with gratitude."— Centro Journal"Greyhound Grad Publishes Two Books Focused on Puerto Rican Folklore," by Desiree Cooper— Eastern New Mexico University"Race and Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore fills in gaps both in the historiography of Puerto Rican cultural history and in the history of folkloristics in the United States. Necessary and timely issues of race, colonialism, and class as they affected the collecting and editing processes are addressed in detail. Issues of gender inequality and the effects of not including adult women in the collection, are mentioned but not unpacked at the same level."— Journal of Folklore Research"Race Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore, Ocasio, then, makes his impact on the future of his island, as well as on a future in which we study and document small, still colonized, nations, and by doing so state that they are not expendable. That no nation is."— South Atlantic Review

RAFAEL OCASIO is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Spanish at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, Georgia.

• List of IllustrationsIntroduction: Retention and Reinvention of Puerto Rican Oral Folklore Tales                             1          Porto Rico as a Colonial Scientific Laboratory: Documenting Puerto Rican Oral FolklorePart I: The Island of Porto Rico in the U.S. Public EyePart II: Identifying Porto Rican Folklore: The Compilation Process                                             2          A Post-Spanish American War National Identity: Editing Puerto Rican Folktales in a Socio-Political Vacuum                      Part I: Arguing about La Raza and a Native Puerto Rican CulturePart II: Editing in a Socio-Political Vacuum: Personal and Professional Differences          3          Jíbaros' Authorship through Self-Literary Characterization Part I: A Countryside-inspired Folklore through Jíbaros' AuthorshipPart II: Juan Bobo and Other Native Picaresque Characters: Surviving the Rural Campo   4          Telling a Story about Class and Ethnicity through Fairy Tales, Cuentos puertorriqueños and LeyendasPart I: Expressing Jíbaro Cultural Values through Native Oral FolklorePart II: El campo as a Site of Puerto Rican Identity in Cuentos de encantamiento, Cuentos puertorriqueños and Leyendas puertorriqueñas                                                                           5          An (Un)colored Puerto Rican Culture: Unpublished Negro Fieldwork in Old LoízaPart I: Loíza as a Site of an Afro-Puerto Rican CulturePart II: Reconstructing A Post-Slavery Afro-Puerto Rican Popular Folklore: The Unpublished Field Notes                                6          Tropicalizing the Puerto Rican Racial Past: The Quest of an Indian Area                           ConclusionAcknowledgments      NotesBibliography                                                                                                                   Index

"Race and Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore is a must-read for those interested in the cultural layout of early twentieth-century Puerto Rico and its burgeoning, sociopolitical consciousness. Ocasio expertly traces the multicultural artifacts of oral transmission collected by 'the Father of American Anthropology,' Franz Boas and his mentee, John Alden Mason, on the Island at the turn of the century, revealing the relationship between those texts and Boricua identity."— Angie Willis, co-author of forthcoming Reinaldo Arenas, Pedagogue: Readings for a Post-Fidel Castro Era"Rafael Ocasio's Race and Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore will be of significant interest to students of Puerto Rican culture and history as it skillfully revives important events involving the U.S. and Puerto Rico that have lost definition with the passing of time, even if they have not lost relevance. The author brings to bear on an anthropological topic his unique talent for literary and cultural criticism."— Rudyard Alcocer, author of Time Travel in the Latin American & Caribbean Imagination: Re-reading History"Race and Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore fills in gaps both in the historiography of Puerto Rican cultural history and in the history of folkloristics in the United States. Necessary and timely issues of race, colonialism, and class as they affected the collecting and editing processes are addressed in detail. Issues of gender inequality and the effects of not including adult women in the collection, are mentioned but not unpacked at the same level."— Journal of Folklore Research"Greyhound Grad Publishes Two Books Focused on Puerto Rican Folklore," by Desiree Cooper— Eastern New Mexico University"For all these dazzling discoveries made with academic and intellectual rigor, you have to read this new book by Rafael Ocasio. I read it with interest, with amazement and, above all, with gratitude."— Centro Journal"Race & Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore, Ocasio, then, makes his impact on the future of his island, as well as on a future in which we study and document small, still colonized, nations, and by doing so state that they are not expendable. That no nation is."— South Atlantic Review"Race and Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore is a must-read for those interested in the cultural layout of early twentieth-century Puerto Rico and its burgeoning, sociopolitical consciousness. Ocasio expertly traces the multicultural artifacts of oral transmission collected by 'the Father of American Anthropology,' Franz Boas and his mentee, John Alden Mason, on the Island at the turn of the century, revealing the relationship between those texts and Boricua identity."— Angie Willis, co-author of forthcoming Reinaldo Arenas, Pedagogue: Readings for a Post-Fidel Castro Era"Rafael Ocasio's Race and Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore will be of significant interest to students of Puerto Rican culture and history as it skillfully revives important events involving the U.S. and Puerto Rico that have lost definition with the passing of time, even if they have not lost relevance. The author brings to bear on an anthropological topic his unique talent for literary and cultural criticism."— Rudyard Alcocer, author of Time Travel in the Latin American & Caribbean Imagination: Re-reading History"For all these dazzling discoveries made with academic and intellectual rigor, you have to read this new book by Rafael Ocasio. I read it with interest, with amazement and, above all, with gratitude."— Centro Journal"Greyhound Grad Publishes Two Books Focused on Puerto Rican Folklore," by Desiree Cooper— Eastern New Mexico University"Race and Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore fills in gaps both in the historiography of Puerto Rican cultural history and in the history of folkloristics in the United States. Necessary and timely issues of race, colonialism, and class as they affected the collecting and editing processes are addressed in detail. Issues of gender inequality and the effects of not including adult women in the collection, are mentioned but not unpacked at the same level."— Journal of Folklore Research"Race Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore, Ocasio, then, makes his impact on the future of his island, as well as on a future in which we study and document small, still colonized, nations, and by doing so state that they are not expendable. That no nation is."— South Atlantic Review