366 Chapter 15
berto Gómez. In addition, in the first few years they all came from
Havana. They were urbanites who were at least loosely connected to
Cuban politics. Also, although Washington created a large funding
drive for these students, the initial students appear to have been
mostly funded by their families, and the case in which Gómez had to
ask for a scholarship for one of the students was an exception, rather
than the rule (Guridy, 2010: 17). These were most likely not represen-
tatives of the masses of former slaves who were still working in the
countryside on increasingly American-owned sugar centrales, facing
stiff competition from new immigrant laborers.^12 Even the lower class
students were children of domestic workers or tradesmen who were
connected to an intercity network that allowed them to work in differ-
ent cities (Guridy, 2010: 37-41).
The Puerto Rican students at Tuskegee had a different back-
ground. From the beginning, they came from various different towns
and cities throughout Puerto Rico, suggesting that these were not an
elite group with political connections from the capital. Rather, they
had been chosen by the American-led government in order to dissem-
inate American values by teaching it to students throughout the island.
The Puerto Rican group also included many more women than the
Cuban group did. In addition, while the two records I have for Cuban
students’ specialization shows them majoring in architectural drawing,
a professional field, the Puerto Rican students specialized in a wide
variety of trades, including millinery, agriculture, dairying, engineering,
dress-making, and carpentry.^13
Many of the Afro-Cuban graduates from Tuskegee went on to suc-
cessful professional lives, demonstrating that Tuskegee could and did
produce “lawyers” as well as “farmers.” Washington did not hinder,
- Alejandro de la Fuente argues that urbanization did not greatly increase in the first
decade after the war, suggesting that most former slaves were still working in the coun-
tryside and in the sugar industry, although they were now wage-laborers. Alejandro de la
Fuente, A Nation for All (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), Chapter
- Student Records Book, 1895-1908 and Student Records Book, 1894-1897. Tuskegee Uni-
versity Archives.