I. Introduction

Welcome to the DB Yale Syllabus! This living document highlights key readings, digital archives, and guiding questions to deepen your understanding of Puerto Rico’s rich history, culture, and political landscape. We encourage you to explore these materials, share your insights, and help us expand this resource over time.

II. Curated Reading Lists

This section presents an extensive, curated reading list based on Amanda Rivera’s scholarship. Click on each category below to reveal the detailed texts.

1. Pre-1898 Puerto Rican History: Spanish Colonial Rule, Enslavement, Resistance & Early Whispers of Independence
  • Pre-Columbian and Early Conquest:
    • Stephan Palmié and Francisco A. Scarano, eds. The Caribbean: A History of the Region and its Peoples (2011) – Chapters on labor, migration, and resistance.
    • Jalil Sued-Badillo, “From Taínos to Africans in the Caribbean: Labor, Migration and Resistance” (Chapter 6).
    • Stephan Palmié, “Toward Sugar and Slavery” (Chapter 8).
  • Colonial Diasporic Perspectives:
    • José Morales, “The Hispaniola Diaspora, 1791-1850: Puerto Rico, Cuba, Louisiana and Other Host Societies” (1986 dissertation).
  • Mortality & Social Memory:
    • David M. Stark, "Failure to Show Reverence to the Dead: Death and Dying in Late Eighteenth-Century Mayagüez, Puerto Rico." Journal of Caribbean History 51, no. 2 (2017): 113-142.
  • Subaltern Identity Formation:
    • Francisco A. Scarano, “The Jíbaro Masquerade and the Subaltern Politics of Creole Identity Formation in Puerto Rico, 1745-1823.” The American Historical Review 101, no. 5 (Dec 1996): 1398-1431.
2. Enslavement, Resistance & Early Rumbles of Independence
  • Slavery and Plantation Economy:
    • Francisco A. Scarano, Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico: The Plantation Economy of Ponce, 1800-1850 (1984).
    • Joseph C. Dorsey, Slave Traffic in the Age of Abolition: Puerto Rico, West Africa, and the Non-Hispanic Caribbean, 1815-1859 (2003).
  • Abolition and Resistance:
    • Joseph C. Dorsey, “Seamy Sides of Abolition: Puerto Rico and the Cabotage Slave Trade to Cuba, 1848-1873.” Slavery and Abolition 19:1 (April 1998): 106-128.
    • Jay Kinsbruner, Not of Pure Blood: The Free People of Color and Racial Prejudice in Nineteenth-Century Puerto Rico (1996).
    • Victor C. Simpson, “Harnessing a Critical Resource: Black West Indian Migration to Puerto Rico during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.” The Journal of Caribbean History 43, no. 1 (2009): 51-IX.
  • Early Independence Movements:
    • Olga Jiménez de Wagenheim, Puerto Rico’s Revolt for Independence: El Grito de Lares (1985).
    • Jesse Hofnung-Garskof, “To Abolish the Law of Castes: Merit, Manhood, and the Problem of Colour in the Puerto Rican Liberal Movement, 1873-92.” Social History 36, no. 3 (2011): 312-42.
3. The Beginnings of the American Occupation
  • Legal Frameworks of Belonging:
    • Sam Erman, Almost Citizens: Puerto Rico, the U.S. Constitution, and Empire (2019).
    • Christina Duffy Burnett and Burke Marshall, eds. Foreign in a Domestic Sense: Puerto Rico, American Expansion, and the Constitution (2001).
    • Frances Negrón-Muntaner and Ramón Grosfoguel, eds. Puerto Rican Jam: Rethinking Colonialism and Nationalism (1997).
  • Labor and Economic Colonization:
    • César J. Ayala and Laird Bergad, Agrarian Puerto Rico: Reconsidering Rural Economy and Society, 1899-1940 (2020).
    • César J. Ayala, American Sugar Kingdom: The Plantation Economy of the Spanish Caribbean, 1898-1934 (1999).
    • Manuel R. Rodriguez, A New Deal for the Tropics: Puerto Rico during the Depression Era, 1932-1935 (2011).
    • Helen I. Safa, The Myth of the Male Breadwinner: Women and Industrialization in the Caribbean (1995) and The Urban Poor of Puerto Rico: A Study in Development and Inequality (1974).
    • Ed Morales, Fantasy Island: Colonialism, Exploitation, and the Betrayal of Puerto Rico (2019).
  • Diasporic Labor:
    • Altagracia Ortiz, ed. Puerto Rican Women and Work: Bridges in Transnational Labor (1996).
    • Edna Acosta-Belén, ed. The Puerto Rican Woman: Perspectives on Culture, History, and Society (1986); includes essays by Blanca Silvestrini and Virginia Sánchez Korrol.
    • Ismael Garcia-Colón, Colonial Migrants at the Heart of Empire: Puerto Rican Workers on U.S. Farms (2020).
4. Educational Colonialism & Knowledge Production
  • Language Policy & Education:
    • Maria Josefa Canino, “An Historical Review of the English Language Policy in Puerto Rico’s Educational System: 1898-1949.” (1981 dissertation).
    • Solsiree del Moral, Negotiating Empire: The Cultural Politics of Schools in Puerto Rico, 1898–1952 (2013).
  • Archival Practices & Knowledge Production:
    • Jorell A. Meléndez-Badillo, The Lettered Barriada: Workers, Archival Power, and the Politics of Knowledge in Puerto Rico (2021).
    • Pablo Navarro-Rivera, “Acculturation Under Duress: The Puerto Rican Experience at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 1898-1918.”
    • Catherine S. Ramirez, “Indians and Negroes in Spite of Themselves: Puerto Rican Students at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.” (2019).
    • Clif Stratton, Education for Empire: American Schools, Race, and the Paths of Good Citizenship (2016), pp. 173-210.
5. Early Sociopolitical Constructions & Contestations of Puertorriquenidad
  • Masculinity, Domesticity, & Migration:
    • Eileen Findlay, We Are Left Without a Father Here: Masculinity, Domesticity, and Migration in Postwar Puerto Rico (2014).
  • Race, Gender, & Nation:
    • Hilda Lloréns, Imaging the Great Puerto Rican Family: Framing Nation, Race, and Gender during the American Century (2014).
    • Yiedy Rivero, Tuning Out Blackness: Race and Nation in the History of Puerto Rican Television (2005).
    • Ileana Rodriguez-Silva, Silencing Race: Disentangling Blackness, Colonialism, and National Identities in Puerto Rico (2012).
    • Marisol LeBrón, “Puerto Rico and the Colonial Circuits of Policing.” NACLA Report on the Americas 49, no. 3 (2017): 328-334.
6. New York as the (Un)Promised Land
  • Setting the Scene:
    • Jesse Hofnung-Garskof, Racial Migrations: New York City and the Revolutionary Politics of the Spanish Caribbean (2019).
  • Social Scientific Accounts:
    • Laurence Chenault, The Puerto Rican Migrant in New York City (1938).
    • C. Wright Mills, Clarence Senior and Rose Kohn Goldsen, The Puerto Rican Journey: New York’s Newest Migrants (1950).
    • Oscar Lewis, La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty (1966).
  • Nuyorican Voices:
    • Elena Padilla, Up from Puerto Rico (1958).
    • Virginia Sánchez Korrol, From Colonia to Community: The History of Puerto Ricans in New York City, 1917-1948 (1983).
    • Clara Rodríguez, Puerto Ricans: Born in the USA (1989).
    • Ana Celia Zentella, Growing Up Bilingual: Puerto Rican Children in New York (1997).
7. Alternative Sites of Diaspora
  • Hawaii:
    • JoAnna Poblete, Islanders in the Empire: Filipino and Puerto Rican Laborers in Hawai’i (2014).
  • Chicago and the Midwest:
    • Ana Ramos-Zayas, National Performances: Class, Race, and Space in Puerto Rican Chicago (2003).
    • Mérida M. Rúa, A Grounded Identidad: Making New Lives in Chicago’s Puerto Rican Neighborhoods (2012).
    • Gina M. Pérez, Citizen, Student, Soldier: Latina/o Youth, JROTC, and the American Dream (2015).
    • Mirelsie Velázquez, Puerto Rican Chicago: Schooling the City, 1940-1977 (2022).
  • Mid-Atlantic:
    • Mercy Romero, Toward Camden (2021).
    • Judith Goode, Koreans and Puerto Ricans in Philadelphia: How Interethnic Relations are Shaped by Local Situations and Racialist Discourse (1999).
  • New England:
    • Llana Barber, Latino City: Immigration and Urban Crisis in Lawrence, Massachusetts 1945-2000 (2017).
    • Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, “Saving the Parcela: A Short History of Boston’s Puerto Rican Population” (2005).
    • Alex Huxley Westfried, Ethnic Leadership in a New England Community: Three Puerto Rican Families (1981).
    • Jeffrey R. Backstrand and Stephen Schensul, “Co-Evolution in an Outlying Ethnic Community: The Puerto Ricans of Hartford, Connecticut” (1982): 9-37.
    • Ruth Glasser, Aquí Me Quedo: Puerto Ricans in Connecticut (1997).
    • José E. Cruz, Identity and Power: Puerto Rican Workers and Postwar Economies (1998).
    • Hilda Lloréns and Carlos Garcia-Quijano, “Puerto Rican Girls Speak! The Meanings of Success for Puerto Rican Girls in Hartford, Connecticut” (2012): 84-109.
  • Orlando:
    • Patricia Silver, Sunbelt Diaspora: Race, Class, and Latino Politics in Puerto Rican Orlando (2020).
    • Simone Delerme, “The Latinization of Orlando: Language, Whiteness, and the Politics of Place” (2013): 60-95.
8. Ongoing Struggles, Resistances & Stateside Perspectives
  • Contemporary Struggles & Environmental Justice:
    • Hilda Lloréns, Making Livable Worlds: Afro-Puerto Rican Women Building Environmental Justice (2021).
    • Zaire Dinzey-Flores, Locked In, Locked Out: Gated Communities in a Puerto Rican City (2013).
    • Yarimar Bonilla, ed. Aftershocks of Disaster: Puerto Rico Before and After the Storm (2019).
    • Yarimar Bonilla and Isar Godreau, “Nonsovereign Racecraft: How Colonialism, Debt, and Disaster are Transforming Puerto Rican Racial Subjectivities” (2021): 509-525.
    • Hilda Lloréns, “Beyond blanqueamiento: Black Affirmation in Contemporary Puerto Rico” (2018): 157-178.
    • Marisol LeBrón, “Policing Solidarity: State Violence, Blackness, and the University of Puerto Rico Strikes” (2015): 113-134.
  • Stateside Perspectives:
    • Johanna Fernández, The Young Lords: A Radical History (2020).
    • Arlene Dávila, Barrio Dreams: Puerto Ricans, Latinos and the Neoliberal City (2004).
    • Salvador Vidal-Ortiz, “On Being a White Person of Color: Using Autoethnography to Understand Puerto Ricans' Racialization” (2021).
    • Dan Berger, “’A Common Citizenship of Freedom’: What Black Power Taught Chicago’s Puerto Rican Independentistas” (2016): 127-151.
    • Sonia Song-Ha Lee, Building a Latino Civil Rights Movement: Puerto Ricans, African Americans, and the Pursuit of Racial Justice in New York City (2014).
    • Ana Ramos-Zayas, “Delinquent Citizenship, National Performances: Racialization, Surveillance, and the Politics of ‘Worthiness’ in Puerto Rican Chicago” (2004): 26-44.
    • Pedro Cabán, “Puerto Rican Studies: Changing Islands of Knowledge” (2009): 256-281.
9. Puerto Rican Fiction, Poetry & Arts
  • Literary Classics & Contemporary Novels:
    • Rosario Ferré, The House on the Lagoon (1997) – Historical fiction exploring Puerto Rican identity through multiple generations.
    • Mayra Santos-Febres, Sirena Selena (2001) – Contemporary fiction examining gender and identity in the Caribbean context.
    • Julia Alvarez, The Afterlife (2020) – Contemporary fiction with themes of diaspora and belonging.
    • Marisel Vera, The Taste of Sugar (2020) – Historical fiction exploring the impact of U.S. occupation on Puerto Rican lives.
    • Ann Dávila Cardinal, The Storyteller's Death – Mystery and magical realism elements with Puerto Rican cultural themes.
  • Coming of Age & Memoir:
    • Piri Thomas, Down These Mean Streets (1997) – Seminal memoir of Puerto Rican experience in New York.
    • Judith Ortiz Cofer, Silent Dancing: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood (2006) – Coming of age narrative.
    • Judith Ortiz Cofer, The Line of the Sun (1991) – Coming of age narrative exploring cultural identity and migration.
    • Magali García Ramis, Felices días, Tío Sergio (1988) – Coming of age story set in Puerto Rico.
  • Experimental & Avant-Garde Literature:
    • Luis Rafael Sánchez, La guaracha del Macho Camacho (2005) – Satirical and avant-garde Puerto Rican literature.
    • Giannina Braschi, Yo-Yo Boing! (2011) – Experimental work blending multiple languages and cultural references.
    • Giannina Braschi, United States of Banana (2011) – Magical realism exploring political themes.
    • Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá, La noche oscura del Niño Avilés (1991) – Historical fiction with magical realism elements.
  • Theatre & Drama:
    • René Marqués, La Carreta (1969) – Classic play exploring migration and cultural identity.
    • Francisco Arriví, Vejigantes (1970) – Drama exploring racial and cultural tensions in Puerto Rico.
    • Tato Laviera, La Carreta Made a U-Turn (1993) – Poetry collection exploring Puerto Rican identity in the diaspora.
  • Magical Realism & Short Stories:
    • Rosario Ferré, La muñeca menor (1976) – Magical realism short story collection.
    • Lydia Vega, Encancaranublado y otros cuentos de naufragio (1982) – Short stories exploring migration and identity.
    • Lydia Vega, Falsas Crónicas del Sur – Postmodern historical fiction.
    • José Luis González, Ballad of Another Time – Classic Puerto Rican literature exploring historical themes.
  • Anthologies:
    • Juan Flores, Divided Borders: Essays on Puerto Rican Identity (1992) – Collection of critical essays on cultural identity.
    • Roberto Santiago (ed.), Boricuas: Influential Puerto Rican Writings - An Anthology (1995) – Comprehensive collection of Puerto Rican writings.
    • Alma Gómez, Cherríe Moraga, and Mariana Romo-Carmona (eds.), Cuentos: Stories by Latinas (1983) – Anthology featuring Puerto Rican women's voices.
  • Graphic Literature:
    • John Vasquez Mejias, A Puerto Rican War: A Graphic History (2024) – Visual exploration of Puerto Rican history through graphic novel format.
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Digital Archives & Online Collections

A. Academic & Archival Resources

B. Specialized Digital Projects

Multimedia & Podcasts

A. Audio & Video Resources

Academic Portals & Guides

A. University-Based Guides

B. Discussion Forums & Community Engagement

  • Coming Soon: academic forums and online discussion groups.
  • Coming Soon: a moderated discussion board on the DB Yale site for community insights.

Guiding Questions for Deeper Study

  • Identity & Diaspora: How do colonial legacies and diaspora experiences shape contemporary Puerto Rican identity?
  • Cultural Resilience: How do literature, music, and oral histories reflect the "brega" (struggle)?
  • Political and Social Transformation: How have debates over political status influenced cultural and social policies?
  • Digital Humanities: What is the impact of digital archives on preserving Puerto Rican history?
  • Science & Culture: How do initiatives like Ciencia Puerto Rico contribute to progress?
Political Imagery Reinterpretation 1

Additional Resources & Community Engagement

A. Websites & Blogs

  • CentroPR - Ongoing exhibitions and cultural programs.

B. Social Media & Virtual Events

C. Discussion Groups

  • Join or create to discuss readings and digital exhibits.

This syllabus is designed to evolve—feel free to suggest to us different and new links, update readings, and community resources.