This collection was originally developed as an interdisciplinary reader for Puerto Rican Studies courses under the title The Puerto Rican Struggle: Essays on Survival in the U.S. It is being reissued with updated commentary because of its continuing relevance to courses in American, Ethnic, and Latino Studies. Included are articles that continue to be vital to the Puerto Rican community, but were generally ignored within more mainstream contexts, ranging from literary selections by non-academic writers to more traditional social science approaches.
Articles on Puerto Rican women, the Young Lords, Latin music, the struggle for local political control, spiritualism, the struggles within the Catholic Church, the Puerto Rican Day Parade, race within ethnicity, political activism, the economy, and a beginning critique of the conceptual models and methods used to “measure” the quality of life among Puerto Ricans make up this interdisciplinary volume.