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Puerto Rican Studies in the City University of New York: The First Fifty Years, Edited by María Elizabeth Pérez y González and Virginia Sánchez Korrol.
Authored by leading scholars in the field of Puerto Rican and Latinx Studies, Puerto Rican Studies in the City University of New York: The First 50 Years is an important milestone in documenting the power of collective consciousness and action to create change in and access to higher education for all peoples. The book features a comprehensive 50-year trajectory in the field of Puerto Rican Studies (PRS) at the City University of New York in a series of critical essays on scholarship, the social sciences, bilingual education, media, and its counterparts beyond CUNY, in addition to retrospectives from founders of the field, current professors, and alumni. The student founders of PRS, its pioneering faculty and groundbreaking interdisciplinary focus on the intersectionalities of race, culture, gender, power, and class, elucidate a contentious path to forging an anti-racist and decolonial pedagogy. The critical analysis in the scholarship found in this volume assesses the current status of Puerto Rican Studies in continuing to meet its academic mission, challenges and opportunities, and points to future directions in the 21st century.
Afro-Latinos in the U.S. Economy, by Michelle Holder and Alan A. Aja.
Afro-Latinos in the U.S. Economy outlines the current position and status of Afro-Latinxs in the economy of the United States. Very little research has thus far been disseminated in the field of economics on the contributions of Afro-Latinos regarding income and wealth, labor market status, occupational mobility, and educational attainment. On the other hand, cultural studies, literary criticism, and social science fields have produced more research on Afro-Latinos; the discipline of economics is, thus, significantly behind the curve in exploring the economic dimensions of this group. While the Afro-Latino community constitutes a comparatively small segment of the U.S. population, and is often viewed as the nexus between two of the country’s largest minority groups—African Americans and Latinos, who comprise 13% and 17%, respectively, of the U.S. population—Holder and Aja outline how the group’s unique economic position is different than non-black Latinos. Despite possessing higher levels of education relative to the Latino community as a whole, U.S. Afro-Latinos do not experience expected returns in income and earnings, underscoring the role anti-Blackness plays in everyday life regardless of ancestral origin. The goal of this book is to provide a foundation in the economic dimensions of Afro-Latinos in the United States, which can be used to both complement and supplement research conducted on this group in other major disciplines.
Miami’s Forgotten Cubans, by Alan A. Aja.
Miami’s Forgotten Cubans explores the reception experiences of post-1958 Afro-Cubans in South Florida in relation to their similarly situated “White” Cuban compatriots. Utilizing interviews and ethnographic observations, and applying Census data analyses, Aja begins not with the more socially diverse 1980 Mariel boatlift, but earlier, documenting that a small number of middle-class Afro-Cuban exiles defied predominant settlement patterns in the 1960 and 1970s, attempting to immerse themselves in the newly formed but ultimately racially exclusive “ethnic enclave.” Confronting a local Miami Cuban “White wall” and anti-Black Southern racism subsumed within an intra-group “success” myth that equally holds that Cubans and other Latin Americans hail from “racial democracies,” Black Cuban immigrants and their children, including subsequent waves of arrival and return-migrants, found themselves negotiating the boundaries of being both “Black” and “Latino” in the United States.
Puerto Ricans in the United States by María Pérez y González.
Puerto Ricans in the United States begins by presenting Puerto Rico―the land, the people, and the culture. The island’s invasion by U.S. forces in 1898 set the stage for our intertwined relationship to the present day. Pérez y González brings to life important historical events leading to immigration to the United States, particularly to the large northeastern cities, such as New York. The narrative highlights Puerto Ricans’ adjustment and adaptation in this country through the media, institutions, language, and culture. A wealth of information is given on socioeconomic status, including demographics, employment, education opportunities, and poverty and public assistance. The discussions on the struggles of this group for affordable housing, issues of women and children, particular obstacles to obtaining appropriate health care, including the epidemic of AIDS, and race relations are especially insightful. The final chapter on Puerto Ricans’ impact on U.S. society highlights their positive contributions in a wide range of fields.
