Al rescate del jibaro puertorriqueño: relaciones coloniales y médicas en las campañas de anemia del doctor coronel Bailey Ashford, 1898-1914

Abstract

Doctor Colonel Bailey Ashford came to Puerto Rico with the military forces that invaded Puerto Rico in 1898. This was a time when U.S. expansionist ideas converged with a scientific racialized discourse and constructed an identity for what was considered the "typical" Puerto Rican. Imperial and local public health campaigns aided in the "americanization" process on the island as the voice of physicians asserted themselves in the political and public debates of the early twentieth century. This investigation takes a look at how doctors like Ashford and other prominent local physicians constructed the image of the Puerto Rican jibaro (mountain agricultural worker) through the anemia campaigns during the first 15 years of U.S. rule. This piece unites literary-discursive interpretation with some medical anthropology to produce a historical narrative.