Public Libraries of Suffolk County, New York

The Puerto Rican nation on the move, identities on the island & in the United States, Jorge Duany

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 297-329) and index

government publication level undetermined

illustrations

index present

1400L, Lexile

non fiction

The Puerto Rican nation on the move

electronic resource eBook

bibliographydictionaries

Jorge Duany

identities on the island & in the United States

Puerto Ricans maintain a vibrant identity that bridges two very different places--the island of Puerto Rico and the U.S. mainland. Whether they live on the island, in the States, or divide time between the two, most imagine Puerto Rico as a separate nation and view themselves primarily as Puerto Rican. At the same time, Puerto Ricans have been U.S. citizens since 1917, and Puerto Rico has been a U.S. commonwealth since 1952.Jorge Duany uses previously untapped primary sources to bring new insights to questions of Puerto Rican identity, nationalism, and migration. Drawing a distinction between political and cultural nationalism, Duany argues that the Puerto Rican "nation" must be understood as a new kind of translocal entity with deep cultural continuities. He documents a strong sharing of culture between island and mainland, with diasporic communities tightly linked to island life by a steady circular migration. Duany explores the Puerto Rican sense of nationhood by looking at cultural representations produced by Puerto Ricans and considering how others--American anthropologists, photographers, and museum curators, for example--have represented the nation. His sources of information include ethnographic fieldwork, archival research, interviews, surveys, censuses, newspaper articles, personal documents, and literary texts

Introduction: Rethinking colonialism, nationalism, and transnationalism: the case of Puerto Rico -- The construction of cultural identities in Puerto Rico and the diaspora -- The rich gate to future wealth: displaying Puerto Rico at world's fairs -- Representing the newly colonized Puerto Rico in the gaze of American anthropologists, 1898-1915 -- Portraying the other: Puerto Rican images in two American photographic collections -- A postcolonial colony? The rise of cultural nationalism in Puerto Rico during the 1950s -- Collecting the nation: the public representation of Puerto Rico's cultural identity -- Following the migrant citizen: the official discourse on Puerto Rican migration to the United States -- The nation in the diaspora: the reconstruction of the cultural identity of Puerto Rican migrants -- Mobile livelihoods: circular migration, transnational identities and cultural borders between Puerto Rico and the United States -- Neither Black nor White: the representation of racial identity among Puerto Ricans on the island and in the U.S. mainland -- Making Indians out of Blacks: the revitalization of Taino identity in Contemporary Puerto Rico -- Conclusion: Nation, migration, identity