"We were poor but we had everything we needed," reminisces Do?a 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, Do?a 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. Author note: Carmen Teresa Whalen is Assistant Professor of Puerto Rican and Hispanic Caribbean Studies at Rutgers University.

Although few people know its history, Philadelphia is the third-largest Puerto Rican community in the United States. Thousands have made el viaje, or the journey, from Puerto Rico to Philadelphia, beginning before 1898 and continuing today. Puerto Ricans came as political exiles, merchants, and workers and built vibrant everyday lives and community organizations. By the 1970s, the Puerto Rican community was strong and diverse. El Viaje is a photographic journey of Puerto Ricans in Philadelphia, and it refers to a popular local radio program.

A history of the Puerto Rican community in Philadelphia from 1910-1945.

Offering a comprehensive overview of Puerto Rico's history and evolution since the installation of U.S. rule, Cesar Ayala and Rafael Bernabe connect the island's economic, political, cultural, and social past. Puerto Rico in the American Century explores Puerto Ricans in the diaspora as well as the island residents, who experience an unusual and daily conundrum: they consider themselves a distinct people but are part of the American political system; they have U.S. citizenship but are not represented in the U.S. Congress; and they live on land that is neither independent nor part of the United States. Highlighting both well-known and forgotten figures from Puerto Rican history, Ayala and Bernabe discuss a wide range of topics, including literary and cultural debates and social and labor struggles that previous histories have neglected. Although the island's political economy remains dependent on the United States, the authors also discuss Puerto Rico's situation in light of world economies. Ayala and Bernabe argue that the inability of Puerto Rico to shake its colonial legacy reveals the limits of free-market capitalism, a break from which would require a renewal of the long tradition of labor and social activism in Puerto Rico in connection with similar currents in the United States.

Histories of the Puerto Rican experience.