Academics review history, U.S. migration trends of Puerto Ricans in book
Posted by Elena del Valle on April 13, 2007
The Puerto Rican Diaspora book cover
Photo: Temple University Press
In The Puerto Rican Diaspora: Historical Perspectives, published September 2005, nine contributors, including the book’s two editors, set out to dispel two common misperceptions about Puerto Ricans in the United States; that the majority of Puerto Ricans live in New York City, and that they are recent arrivals to the United States. The price of the book is $22.95.
The 306-page soft bound book, published by Temple University Press, was selected 2006 Outstanding Academic Title by Choice magazine, a division of the American Library Association. In the 10-chapter book, the authors share eight stories of settlement and community building, and focus on the economic, political, social effects of the Puerto Rican migration from 1900 to the present.
According to the authors, Puerto Ricans arrived in Hawaii in 1900. They also established communities in the eastern seaboard with noticeable communities in New York City and Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. Following World War II, large Puerto Rican communities were established in the Midwest and New England.
The book was edited by Carmen Teresa Whalen and Víctor Vázquez-Hernández. In addition to the editors, Linda C. Delgado, The College of Mt. St. Vincent; Ruth Glasser, University of Connecticut; Iris O. López, City College of New York; Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, Hunter College; Eugenio “Gene” Rivera; Maura Toro-Morn, Illinois State University; and Olga Jiménez de Wagenheim, Rutgers University, Newark contributed chapters to the book.
Whalen is associate professor of history at Williams College and author of From Puerto Rico to Philadelphia: Puerto Rican Workers and Postwar Economies (Temple, 2001). Vázquez-Hernández is an adjunct orofessor of history who teaches Latin American studies, American studies and U.S. history.
Click here to purchase The Puerto Rican Diaspora
