From Puerto Rico To Philadelphia

Book Description

"We were poor but we had everything we needed," reminisces Doña Epifania. Nonetheless, when a man she knew told her about a job in Philadelphia, she grasped the opportunity to leave Coamas. "He went to Puerto Rico and told me there were beans to cook. I came here and cooked for fourteen workers." In San Lorenzo, Doña Carmen and her husband made the same decision: "We didn't want to, nobody wanted to leave. . . . There wasn't any alternative." Don Florencio recalls that in Salinas work had gotten scarce, "especially for the youth, the young men. . . . The farmworker that was used to cutting cane, already the sugar cane was disappearing," and government licensing regulations made fishing "more difficult for the poor."

Puerto Rican migration to the mainland following World War II took place for a range of reasons—globalization of the economy, the colonial relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico, state policies, changes in regional and local economies, social networks, and, not least, the decisions made by individual immigrants. In this wide-ranging book, Carmen Whalen weaves them all into a tapestry of Puerto Rican immigration to Philadelphia.

Like African Americans and Mexicans, Puerto Ricans were recruited for low-wage jobs, only to confront racial discrimination as well as economic restructuring. As Whalen shows, they were part of that wave of newcomers who come from areas in the Caribbean, Latin America, and Asia characterized by a heavy U.S. military and economic presence, especially export processing zones, looking for a new life in depressed urban environments already populated by earlier labor migrants. But Puerto Rican immigration was also unique, especially in its regional and gender dimensions. Many migrants came as part of contract labor programs shaped by competing agendas.

By the 1990s, economic conditions, government policies, and racial ideologies had transformed Puerto Rican labor migrants into what has been called "the other underclass." Professor Whalen analyzes this continuation of "culture of poverty" interpretations and contrasts it with the efforts of Philadelphia Puerto Ricans to recreate their communities and deal with the impact of economic restructuring and residential segregation in the City of Brotherly Love.

Sponsored Identities: Culture, Politics in Puerto Rico (Puerto Rican Studies)
Average customer rating:

One of the best books on Puerto Rico, a must read.

Offers a good case study of state sponsored culture.

Sponsored Identities: Culture, Politics in Puerto Rico (Puerto Rican Studies)
Arlene M. Davila
Manufacturer: Temple University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Puerto Rican Nation on the Move: Identities on the Island and in the United States

Divided Borders: Essays on Puerto Rican Identity

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Witchcraft and Welfare: Spiritual Capital and the Business of Magic in Modern Puerto Rico

ASIN: 1566395496

Book Description

"Now everybody loves Puerto Rican culture," says a Puerto Rican schoolteacher and festival organizer, "but that's exactly the problem." Thus begins this major examination of cultural nationalism as a political construct involving party ideologies, corporate economic goals, and grassroots cultural groups.

Author Arlene Dávila focuses on the Institute for Puerto Rican Culture, the government institution charged with defining authenticated views of national identity since the 1950s, and on popular festival organizers to illuminate contestations over appropriate representations of culture in the increasingly mass-mediated context of contemporary Puerto Rico. She examines the creation of an essentialist view of nationhood based on a peasant culture and a "unifying" Hispanic heritage, and the ways in which grassroots organizations challenge and reconfigure definitions of national identity through their own activities and representations.

Dávila pays particular attention to the increasing prominence of corporate sponsorship in determining what is distinguished as authentic "Puerto Rican culture" and discusses the politicization of culture as a discourse to debate and legitimize conflicting claims from selling commercial products to advocating divergent status options for the island. In so doing, Dávila illuminates the prospects for cultural identities in an increasingly transnational context by showing the growth of cultural nationalism to be intrinsically connected to forms of political action directed to the realm of culture and cultural politics. This in-depth examination also makes clear that despite contemporary concerns with "authenticity," commercialism is an inescapable aspect of all cultural expressions on the island.

Customer Reviews:

One of the best books on Puerto Rico, a must read........2001-08-01

This is a very acute study of cultural politics in Puerto Rico. The author exposes the dynamics that make culture such an important forum to debate identity among Puerto Ricans on the island and abroad. It is an excellent book and a must read for anyone interested in contemporary Puerto Rican studies.

Offers a good case study of state sponsored culture........1998-07-11

After reading this book I can say that Davila offers a good case study of the Puerto Rican Institute of Culture has historically acted as an authority which sanctions specific cultural products/practices as Puerto Rican. Her description of the struggle over authenticity at the Bacardi Festival is excellent. However, her analysis of how identity/ies are negotiated and framed suffers for lack of theoretical rigour. Her understanding of nationalism and her notion of nationalism as somehow inclusive is a case in point. This book also betrays a lack of historical knowledge about Puerto Rican political history as a number of errors concerning political party history appear in the text. The main value of this book is as an empirical case study on which others can build a serious analysis of how culture and identity are contested in Puerto Rico.

The Economy of Puerto Rico: Restoring Growth

Average customer rating:

Not for the faint of heart but well worth the effort.
Shows that Economist are Never in Agreement

The Economy of Puerto Rico: Restoring Growth

Manufacturer: Brookings Institution Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Puerto Rico: Negotiating Development and Change
Restoring Growth in Puerto Rico: Overview and Policy Options
Economic History of Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico: The Trials of the Oldest Colony in the World
Foreign in a Domestic Sense: Puerto Rico, American Expansion, and the Constitution (American Encounters/Global Interactions)

ASIN: 0815715536

Book Description

A territory of the United States, Puerto Rico operates under U.S. legal, monetary, security and tariff systems. Despite sharing in these and other key U.S. institutions, Puerto Rico has experienced economic stagnation and large scale unemployment since the 1970s. The island's living standards are low by U.S. standards, with a per capita income only half that of Mississippi, the poorest state. While many studies have analyzed the fiscal implications of Puerto Rico's political relationship with the United States, little research has focused broadly on the island's economic experience or assessed its growth prospects.

In this innovative new book, economists from U.S. and Puerto Rican institutions address a range of major policy issues affecting the island's economic development. To frame the current situation, the contributors begin by assessing Puerto Rico's past experience with various growth policies. They then analyze several reforms and new initiatives in labor, education, entrepreneurship, fiscal policy, migration, trade, and financing development, which they incorporate into a proposed strategy for jumpstarting Puerto Rican economic growth.

Customer Reviews:

Not for the faint of heart but well worth the effort........2007-08-29

Having just finished this nearly 600 page exhaustive volume on the Economy of Puerto Rico, I must admit that although such an endeavor is well worth the effort, it is not for the faint of heart.

What fascinated me the most about this book was the chapter/essay format in which each of 8 central chapters were written by a separate team of scholars and economists and then subsequently critiqued by at least two scholars with differing viewpoints. In all of my studies across a myriad of subjects, I do not believe I have ever encountered such a brilliant and honest format. If the work was partially sponsored by special interest groups, it does not show. In fact, the often harsh cross-examination and rebuttal of many chapter findings in the comments at the end of each chapter provide the reader with a fair-debate format in which they can reach their own conclusions. Furthermore, because each chapter was written independently, an astute reader can easily filter out individual biases by cross-referencing statistics and developing his/her own complete picture. In other words, the fact that several of the chapters conclusions contradict one another is a good thing because it shows the entire volume was not edited to produce a pre-determined viewpoint or recommendation.

The conclusion chapter does make recommendations that may have some bias (which is why you must read every page of the book), but that bias was not enforced upon the chapter/essay writers or the upon the writers of the chapter critique-comments appearing at the end of each central chapter. This book provides a sufficient quantity of raw information necessary to obtain an unbiased and accurate perspective of the topics covered. By reading, re-reading, cross-referencing and keeping an array of mental variables, it is possible to filter out statistical misrepresentation and editorial bias.

There are 8 central chapters (excluding the introduction and summary) covering the following topics (Economic Growth, Labor Supply and Public Transfers, Low Employment Participation, Education and Economic Development, The Climate for Business Development, Assessing Puerto Rico's Fiscal Policies, Financing Economic Development, and Trade Performance and Industrial Policy).

It is my opinion that this book should be required reading for college students of economics and politic science as it substantially goes beyond the subject of the Economy of Puerto Rico to cover, explain and define an array of economic and political topics as well as statistical principles relevant to the understanding of the wide-range-dynamics of any economy in the world.

Shows that Economist are Never in Agreement.......2007-02-27

The liberal think tank Brookings Institution and the Puerto Rican Center for the New Economy got together to purportedly write a book on the island's economy. In reality, it reads like a symposium on the Puertorrican economy, written by academics. Don't get me wrong, it is well written, thoroughly researched and incisive but it is heavy reading and the authors contradict each other constantly. Still, it is a must read but you are better off reading James Dietz' two books on the island's economy, which are more entertaining and informative.

It is important to note that among the sponsors of the book are the island's largest bank and many other large corporations, which may account for the report's criticism of the use of the Federal Minimum Wage laws there. Again, it is a must read but with a critical mind set.

Puerto Rico: Negotiating Development and Change

Average customer rating:

Puerto Rico: Negotiating Development and Change
James L. Dietz
Manufacturer: L. Rienner Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Puerto Rico: The Trials of the Oldest Colony in the World

ASIN: 1588261476

Sugar, Slavery, and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century Puerto Rico

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Sugar, Slavery, and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century Puerto Rico
Luis A. Figueroa
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 080785610X
Release Date: 2005-12-09

Book Description

The contributions of the black population to the history and economic development of Puerto Rico have long been distorted and underplayed, Luis A. Figueroa contends. Focusing on the southeastern coastal region of Guayama, one of Puerto Rico's three leading centers of sugarcane agriculture, Figueroa examines the transition from slavery and slave labor to freedom and free labor after the 1873 abolition of slavery in colonial Puerto Rico. He corrects misconceptions about how ex-slaves went about building their lives and livelihoods after emancipation and debunks standing myths about race relations in Puerto Rico.

Historians have assumed that after emancipation in Puerto Rico, as in other parts of the Caribbean and the U.S. South, former slaves acquired some land of their own and became subsistence farmers. Figueroa finds that in Puerto Rico, however, this was not an option because both capital and land available for sale to the Afro-Puerto Rican population were scarce. Paying particular attention to class, gender, and race, his account of how these libertos joined the labor market profoundly revises our understanding of the emancipation process and the evolution of the working class in Puerto Rico.

Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico: The Plantation Economy of Ponce, 1800-1850
Average customer rating:

CONVERT NOW, SINNERS!

Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico: The Plantation Economy of Ponce, 1800-1850
Francisco A. Scarano
Manufacturer: Univ of Wisconsin Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0299095800

Customer Reviews:

CONVERT NOW, SINNERS!.......2000-02-15

Francisco Scarano is our Savior, our Messiah, Creator of everything. We must worship this Supreme Being in order that our souls be saved from the ternal flames of Hell. Please, convert now. If you do not convert... Scarano will take care of you. He knows how to punish infidels and ingrates...

Buena Vista: Life and Work on a Puerto Rican Hacienda, 1833-1904

Average customer rating:

Buena Vista: Life and Work on a Puerto Rican Hacienda, 1833-1904
Excellent History Reading on Life in P.R. Hacienda
100% must read.
Excellent

Buena Vista: Life and Work on a Puerto Rican Hacienda, 1833-1904
Guillermo Baralt
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0807848018
Release Date: 1999-06-07

Book Description

This book traces the history of Buena Vista, an estate located in the southern foothills of Puerto Rico's central mountain range. Now a popular living history museum, Buena Vista flourished in the nineteenth century—first as a farm that furnished food for the city of Ponce and surrounding plantations, later as a producer of corn and cornmeal ground at the estate's water-powered mill, and finally as a coffee plantation.

Drawing on an impressive range of primary sources, Guillermo Baralt portrays the estate's history as a series of overlapping changes: from slavery to salaried labor, from primitive processing techniques to the latest in mill technology, from Spanish rule to American control, and from hard-scrabble country life to life as part of the world marketplace. Richly illustrated and written in a lively narrative style, Buena Vista paints a compelling portrait of an era, an island, a family, and an estate, bringing a period in Caribbean history to vivid life.

Customer Reviews:

Buena Vista: Life and Work on a Puerto Rican Hacienda, 1833-1904.......2006-11-05

Historically, factual, fascinating, a wealth of information culturally, and a must read (required) for all Puerto Ricans, Newyoricans, and ANYONE interested in the history of the founding fathers of the New World!...I found this book, while researching the archives online at the New York Historical Society's Library. But, it only showed the original, which was written in Spanish. The history and clarity of the subject matter contained in this book is long overdue, and covered the subject spectrum 100%!

After speaking with my brother, whose first visit to Puerto Rico (at a ripe old age of 49), included a visit to 'Plantation Buena Vista,' he told me about the rich history that he saw there, and that he was totally fascinated by it! I again, researched this book online at [...], and saw, that it was redone in English, so that, I could read it!

If I were asked to contribute anything to this book, I would just say, that I would have liked it to be broader to include more chapters! Perhaps, a sequel to this book can be written! Or, maybe even, it should be made into a TV Series...muchas, Alex Haley's TV miniseries, "ROOTS!"

The ongoing saga of the Buena Vista Plantation, rich cultural history of the Vives Family and Puerto Rico after the turn of the century, is equally, and, even more, compelling a story!

Thank you Amazon for providing this book, as it filled in the facts that not being able to read comprehensively in Spanish has cost!

Excellent History Reading on Life in P.R. Hacienda.......1999-09-22

I received this book on Saturday and finished it Sunday . An excellent, detailed account on life in a Puerto Rican Hacienda. Wonderful illustrations of people of the time and details of sophisticated equipment used in those time. A true picture of how life was then. My grandfather was a farmer and worked on a plantation so this gives light to some of the stories he told me about. An excellent books for anyone that wants to know about their roots and is especially interested in the Ponce area although this was probably typical of all plantations. A must read!!!

100% must read........1999-07-01

If your really into history Colonial days you should really put your hands on this one. It takes you on a drive full of feeling to that era. Im Italian and it made me recall my grandparents village in Palermo... I give Gullermo A. Baralt an A+

Excellent.......1999-06-29

(From Planeta journal): This new English-language translation of an established Caribbean classic traces the history of the Buena Vista estate in the foothills of Puerto Rico's central mountain range. Now a living history museum, Buena Vista gained its initial success producing food for the town of Ponce, proving that raising crops for local consumption could be as profitable as sugar or coffee for export. The text spans almost a century -- a time in which slavery ended and technology expanded at a phenomenal rate. This is an exceptional book, one that any visitor to Puerto Rico should read before making an obligatory visit to the island's Living Museum of Art and Science.

Economic History of Puerto Rico: Institutional Change and Capitalist Development

Average customer rating:

At least we have this work
An excellent work

Economic History of Puerto Rico: Institutional Change and Capitalist Development
James L. Dietz
Manufacturer: Princeton Univ Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Economy of Puerto Rico: Restoring Growth
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ASIN: 0691077169

Customer Reviews:

At least we have this work.......2006-11-23

Good social/economic histories are rare and we are fortunate to have this study for Puerto Rico. It is too easy to forget how life was prior to the demographic explosion of the early 20th century. Many areas had just a few thousand inhabitants. The book also demonstratedse the importance of the Munoz Marin strategy of economic development. If there is any weakness, I think a more detailed analysis of the dependence of PR on the US is warranted. If we compare Puerto Rico to the Dominican Republic, we see a society in which welfare/food stamps programs raised food costs etc. and displaced local agriculture and production. In the Dominican Republic local production remains and costs remain low because of the much lower per capita income. Sea-Land is not referenced in the book. I would point out that his statistics do document the unbalanced nature of trade and the issue of trading with other Caribbean nations given US trade policies. The challenge of continued development requires greater production of domestic goods in Puerto Rico and the ability to trade freely with surrounding economies. In sum, this work is an excellent start for improved understanding of the Commonwealth and its status in the US and the region.

An excellent work.......2006-09-30

In this book James Dietz works on the economial history of the island of Puerto Rico. Dietzs work makes him a pioneer with a complete summary in this subject. The chapters are well written, aslo the works uses ilustrations and graphs which makes this book easy to read. This book covers from the colonization and concludes with an analysis of the actual economy. Excellent work.

The Disenchanted Island: Puerto Rico and the United States in the Twentieth Century

Average customer rating:

A definite wake up call
A wake-up call to Americans and Puerto Ricans alike

The Disenchanted Island: Puerto Rico and the United States in the Twentieth Century
Ronald Fernandez
Manufacturer: Praeger Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Puerto Rico: The Trials of the Oldest Colony in the World
Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science, and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico
Stories from Puerto Rico
The Tainos: Rise and Decline of the People Who Greeted Columbus

ASIN: 0275940969

Book Description

This is a revised and updated edition of Ronald Fernandez's acclaimed study of the Puerto Rico-United States relationship. Tracing that relationship from the early years of the 20th century through to the present, Fernandez provides a comprehensive analysis of political, economic, and military affairs as they relate to Puerto Rico. The new edition is completely up-to-date through 1995 and includes important new material based upon documents found in the Reagan presidential library, as well as newly declassified documents in the Eisenhower library.

Customer Reviews:

A definite wake up call.......2003-03-28

All throughout my school years up until high school, I was bombarded by statements such as, "Puerto Ricans are lazy. They are always on welfare here on the mainland and on foodstamps on the island. That is why the U.S. should not allow Puerto Rico to become a state. They're too dependent."

Little did I know about "neo-colonialism", nor the economic 'development' in Puerto Rico under the direction of the U.S. government. After reading this book, I felt enlightened and, naturally, rather enraged with history. I have read books on all aspects of my culture, while keeping an eye on the economic and political aspects.

Though more and more Puerto Ricans on the island are in favor of statehood, I feel it is important for them to know the history of the island under all the colonial powers (whether Spain or the U.S.).

I thank Ronald Fernandez for all the factual information that he gave. He has opened up my eyes.

Que viva Puerto Rico!

A wake-up call to Americans and Puerto Ricans alike.......1999-02-23

This book summarizes the systematic comedy of errors that has been the United State's dominance over Puerto Rico; perhaps the least publicised of America's abuses towards some of its own (if you care to consider Puerto Ricans as Americans, many of which don't themselves). A must read for any Washington politician who dares to deal with the potentially fractitious (and sometimes fraticidal) subject of Puerto Rico's ultimate status solution.

Book Description

This study examines how Puerto Rico's industrial development process has shaped and been shaped by the state, relations with Washington, and Puerto Rican society, especially in light of the economic crises of the 1970s and 1980s. Sherrie Baver posits that Puerto Rico's extreme integration into the U.S. political economy was an unintended consequence of the development model, and that its result has been a state whose tasks, such as securing an environment for private capital accumulation and income redistribution, have become increasingly regulated by the federal government, challenging Puerto Rico's commonwealth status. Recommended for scholars of Latin American Politics and Third World Development.

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