ETHNICITY AND THE POLITICAL STRUGGLE OF PUERTO RICANS IN THE UNITED STATES

The Puerto Rican Movement: Voices from the Diaspora. Edited by Andrés Torres and José E. Velázquez. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998. xvi + 381 pp. Illustrations, notes and index. $24.95.

Identity and Power: Puerto Rican Politics and the Challenge of Ethnicity. By José E. Cruz. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 1998. xiv + 278 pp. Maps, illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography and index. $22.95.

These two books address a common theme: the political development of several Puerto Rican communities in the northeastern United States.

The anthology, edited by Torres and Velázquez, includes a wide variety of articles, documents, and oral histories of some of the participants in the Puerto Rican community’s quest for political and social change. The collection provides
an important source of information about a moment in the history of the United States and an ethnic group’s struggle for incorporation into the mainstream society. The fact that the participants tell much of the story gives it a sense of intimacy and immediacy. Fearing that such intimacy with the events might lead them to succumb to nostalgia, romanticism, and hero worship, the editors insisted, and for the most part achieved, that their contributors provide the most sober critiques and analyses of the events they discussed.