PRLS History

Why Puerto Rican Studies?

Born of a national trend toward the recognition of ethnic diversity and its presence in the American academy during the late 1960s and early 1970s, departments of Puerto Rican studies have matured into integral academic units of American colleges and universities. During the early years of their existence, these programs pioneered in the creation of a new inter- and multidisciplinary field of study focused on representing the interests of a community of students, faculty, and alumni. In the process, these departments also struggled for autonomy, internal consolidation, and the elaboration of a philosophy and direction that grew out of this praxis. Immersed in an environment of radical student activism, confronting an unpopular war in Vietnam and the demands of an insurgent civil rights movement throughout black communities in the United States, young Puerto Rican college students of that generation heeded the call to analyze and act on the dismal conditions of extant Puerto Rican communities throughout the country and force the university to address this reality in its canonical curricular offerings. Riding the wave of an “ethnic revival” that awakened an interest in the study of a pluralistic and multicultural America, PRS departments established links with traditional disciplines while developing a nascent Latin studies program addressing the lived realities and needs of subsequent and newly arrived diasporic Hispanic groups in the United States. The more established departments embarked on a three-pronged mission, to provide:

• a format for critical and transformational pedagogy;
• much-needed research and inquiry into the social, economic, political, and historic development of Puerto Rican and Latin communities; and
• action-oriented projects via internships in social service agencies, and social and cultural programs in schools promoting quality bilingual education and teacher training at the university level.

The Brooklyn College department, as an example, moved to expand on this mission by pioneering in the creation of the Puerto Rican Studies Research Center (El Centro), housed for the last 43 years at Hunter College (CUNY) and serving the research and community outreach agenda for Latin and, in an expansive role, non-Latino(a) students and faculty throughout CUNY and beyond. At Brooklyn College, its faculty and students struggled to have lower- and upper-level core courses of the department included in the college’s Western-oriented Core Curriculum. Faculty and students at Brooklyn, Hunter, City, John Jay, and other programs in CUNY and SUNY were instrumental in the creation of the Puerto Rican Studies Association. These efforts were led by the chair of the Brooklyn College department, Virginia Sánchez Korrol. Similar community and professional groups were engendered and persevered in spite of an atmosphere of retrenchment and disregard in colleges and universities during the 1980s and 1990s. Some departments and programs were diminished as academic institutions, primarily for budgetary reasons, sought to merge PRS with traditional departments and disciplines, or even by conflating their academic agenda with those of African-American or Black studies. The stronger programs responded by doubling down and re-asserting their original mission and identity, as the indices of employment, education, housing, and social stability plummeted in diasporic Puerto Rican communities that were erstwhile the social, economic, and political engine for the growth and development of other Latin communities. Given the toxic atmosphere surrounding “ethnic” studies in some areas of this nation, the answer to the original question of this essay is not why Puerto Rican Studies, but Puerto Rican Studies: now more than ever.

Submitted by Professor Emeritus Antonio O. Nadal, Department of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies