History of Latinos in New York City

DESCRIPTION

This course will examine the history of Latinos in the context of New York City’s political, economic, race/ethnic, and local history since the late 1800s. We will examine issues such as exile, migration/immigration, city politics, unions and work, urban decline/renewal, housing, poverty, national/racial identity, racial/ethnic relations and whiteness, cultural production, the “invisibility” of Latinos…all in the context of NYC history. Student research will involve analyzing census data, newspapers and other primary source research. We will read archival documents, newspaper and magazine articles, and oral histories in order to discover how these sources are used in the research process. Will include two trips to NYC (one archival/neighborhood vist, one performance or exhibit).

This is an experimental course with material that is drawn from disparate and not frequently integrated materials. Most of the material covers the 1890s through the 1980s. About 60% of the material relates to the Puerto Rican experience in NYC and the balance is based on the experience of Dominicans, Cubans, Spaniards, Mexicans, Colombians, and others…and second, third, fourth generation Latinos of multiple national origin lines of descent. Please notice that readings will change and will be posted as we go along the semester.

 

LEARNING GOALS

After you have fulfilled the course requirements you will:

• Be familiar with the main themes of NYC economic, political and social history.
• Understand the origins and causes of large-scale migration by Puerto Ricans and other Latinos.
• Understand the complex racializations of Latinos in New York City by White Ethnics, “Anglo-Saxon Protestants” and each other.
• Analyze the characteristics of Puerto Rican and Latino labor and community formation processes.
• Understand the economic importance of migrant/immigrant labor to New York City’s economy and how Puerto Ricans and Latinos experienced and survived the city’s economic challenges.

 

COURSE REQUIREMENTS 

Your participation in this class constitutes an agreement between us. I expect you to follow the guidelines presented below and I, in, turn will do my best to facilitate, in a variety of manners, a body of knowledge that is both polemical and shifting and that calls for your own interpretation and dissection. Most important, I expect from all students a reasonable degree of enthusiasm and interest through active engagement with course materials. You will have to complete all requirements in order to receive a grade in this course. I expect you to come to all class sessions prepared and on time. I will provide you with feedback on your progress and present these materials to you in a coherent and organized manner. You will have approximately 100-150 pages of readings each week.

• Determination of Grade:
  • Three 6-7 page papers: 15% each, with credit given for improvement
  • Class participation and attendance: 25%
  • Midterm and Final Exams: There will be two short (1 hour) exams, one for each half of the course. They will focus on basic facts drawn from the readings. 15% each.
  • Participation and improvement will decide borderline cases.
  • Please remember than an A is from 94 to 100 points. See the department grading scale.
• Short assignments:
  • We’ll have short assignments almost every week. Short assignments will be graded with a plus, a check or a minus and will accumulate towards grades of A, B, or C (if they are all handed in). The usual grade will be a check which will indicate satisfactory completion (B). A minus indicates the absence of important components which will be specified. Lower grades will result from missing homework items.
  • The short assignments that form part of the participation grade include occasional short response papers. They should be about one page long and need not be typewritten as long as your handwriting is legible.
• Participation and attendance:
  • Your participation in class activities, including attendance, will be an important component of your final grade. I will take attendance most of the time and more than two absences will reduce your class participation grade by half of a full grade for each absence.
  • Occasionally we will break down into small discussion groups in order to tackle a question or designate students as discussion leaders for a session.
• Class Trips:
  • We will hold two required class trips to New York City. One for a neighbourhood and cultural institution tour the second for a performance.
• Discussion Papers: 
  • I will provide the topics for the first two of these papers. The first two will be based on class readings and discussion. These papers will need to be 6-7 pages in length and reflect your participation in class, your completion of readings, and your own analysis of materials. They will also provide the basis for class discussion. The third paper should reflect the results of our course work as some additional research. All papers will have to be properly footnoted and formatted according to Turabian’s Manual of Style. Do not use parenthetical citation, use footnotes.
• Films:
  • There will be weekly film showings as part of this course. Attendance is required. I’ll do my best to get these on RUTV or other network options in case we show them outside of class time. Otherwise they’ll be on reserve at the Livingston library or dept. The movies will be drawn from this list:
    • Crowded Paradise (1956)
    • Blackboard Jungle (1955)
    • The Young Savages (1961)
    • West Side Story (1961)
    • Fort Apache, The Bronx (1981)
    • Popi (1969)
    • That old gang of mine: El Barrio Remembers (1996)
    • From Mambo to Hip Hop: A South Bronx Tale (2006)
    • El Pueblo Se Levanta (Young Lords) (1971)
    • Pa’lante, siempre Pa’lante: The Young Lords (1996)
    • Antonia Pantoja, Presente! (2008)
    • El Super (1979)
    • Saturday Night Fever(1977)
    • Los dos mundos de Angelita (1982)
    • Mixed Blood (1985)
    • Raising Victor Vargas(2002)
    • Mad Hot Ballroom (2005)
    • Piñero (2002)
    • Nuebayol (1995)
    • Story of Juan Bago (2006)
    • Washington Heights (2002)
    • Dame la mano (2004)
    • Basquiat – “Radiant Child” (2010)
    • Yo Soy Boricua! Pa’ Que Tu Lo Sepas!” (2005)
    • THE AMERICAN DREAM: PUERTO RICANS AND MEXICANS IN NEW YORK (2003)
    • Dreams Ensnared: Dominican Migratin to New York (1994)
    • The Heart of Loisaida (1979)
    • Los Sures (1983)
    • Not for Sale (2004)
    • The Oxcart (1970)
    • PASSIN’ IT ON: 25 YEARS ORGANIZING THE NORTHWEST BRONX (1999)
    • Nuyorican Dream (2000)
    • The Bronx is Burning (BBC)
    • Carmelita Tropicana, Your kunst is your waffen.
    • Latido Latino: senãs de identidad
    • Sugar
    • Carlito’s Way (1993)
    • Puerto Rican Mambo (not a musical) (1992)
    • Hanging wth the Homeboys (1991)
    • I like it like that (1994)
    • Mambo Mouth (1991)
    • El Cantante
•  Online Course:
  • This course relies on our SAKAI site for access to readings, submission of work, communication, etc. Please learn how to use the system ASAP. The use of Sakai is not an optional component of the course but a vital parallel track to our class discussions and readings. You should check it once or twice a week and your email daily. The links from the web pages take you directly to the reading. If for some reason this does not work, you can access Sakai directly at sakai.rutgers.edu. Many of the readings are in PDF format. In order to read or print PDF format documents you must have Adobe’s Acrobat Reader installed. In order to read documents in MS-Word format you must have MS-Word or a word processor that can import files in MS-Word format (most of them can). 

Students are required to be familiar with departmental and University guidelines on plagiarism and the submission of written work. Please note that stringing together fragments of notes taken from the reading materials does note constitute paper-writing! Your papers will require analysis of relationships, not mere recitation of facts or stories. Late papers will be penalized for each day of lateness at the rate of a grade per day. There will be a writing tutor available in the Department of Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies. I encourage you to take advantage of this valuable resource, it’s not only for needy papers , it’s for everyone (I use it!). You are also required to meet with me individually to discuss your strategy for the paper assignments.

 

COURSE ORGANIZATION AND SCHEDULE

Week 1 – Introduction: Latinos in US History

• Carmen Teresa Whalen. “Colonialism, Citizenship, and the Making of the Puerto Rican Diaspora: An Introduction.” In The Puerto Rican Diaspora, Historical Perspectives.
• Gabrial Haslip Viera, “The Evolution of the Latino Community in New York: Early Nineteenth Century to late Twentieth Century,” in Latinos in New York.

• Recommended:
  • Carmen Teresa Whalen and Victor Vazquez-Hernandez eds. Chap.1.
  • Gabriel Haslip Viera, Angelo Falcon & Felix Matos, eds. Chap 1.
  • Gabrial Haslip-Viera & Sherrie Baver eds. Chap. 1.

• Documents:
  • In-Class documents

Week 2 – Pan-Caribbean Anticolonial Movements in New York, 1820s-1890s: Exile, Revolution and Independence

• Nancy Raquel Mirabal. “‘No Country, but the One We Must Fight For’: The Emergence of an ‘Antillean’ Nation and Community in New York City, 1860-1901,” in Mambo Montage: The Latinization of New York(2001).
• Invenciones Diasporicas y Visiones Transamericanas: José Martí y la Cuidad de Nueva York. Revista de la Casa del Caribe, Santiago de Cuba, 2002.

• Optional (but fascinating):
  • Koegel,” Compositores Mexicanos y Cubanos en NY 1880-1920,” Historia Mexicana.

• Documents:
• • Jose Marti writes on New York
  • Maps of New York
    • Generic
    • Ethnic 2010
    • Neighborhoods
    • High Quality Neighborhood in PDF
    • Modern day-Color coded by “race”
    • Ethnic, 1996
    • Percent “Minority” 1960-1990
    • Play with Social Explorer
    • Play with Ancestry.com

Week 3 – The Early Communities: Spaniards, Puerto Ricans and otros, 1898-1920s

• Virginia E. Sanchez Korrol. From Colonia to Community: The History of Puerto Ricans in New York City. Chaps. 1-4
• Lorrin Thomas. Puerto Rican, Citizen. Chap. 1
• Patricia Cooper. Once a Cigar Maker: Men, Women and Work Culture in American Cigar Factories. Ch. 3.

• Recommended:
  • Virginia Sanchez Korrol. “Survival of Puerto Rican Women in NY Before WWII”
  • Virgina Sanchez Korrol. “Building the New York-Puerto Rican Community: An Interpretation.”in Boricuas in Gotham. Puerto Ricans in the Making of Modern New York City.

• Documents:
  • Albert Beveridge Campaign Speech, “The March of the Flag,” 16 September 1898.

• Short Work:
  • Write an outline of the most important arguments and/or evidence presented in Sanchez Korrol
  • Same for the Thomas and Cooper chapters.

Week 4 – Pan-Hispano New York, 1918-1948

• Linda Delgado. “Jesus Colon and the Making of a New York City Community, 1917 to 1974.” In The Puerto Rican Diaspora, Historical Persepectives. Carmen Teresa Whalen and Victor Vazquez-Hernandez eds. Chap. 3.
• Iglesias. Memoirs of Bernardo Vega. Chap. 3.
• Lorrin Thomas. Puerto Rican, Citizen. Chaps. 2-3.
• Meyer—”Marcantonio and El Barrio.”
• Joshua Freedman. Working Class New York. Chaps. 2-4.

• Recommended:
  • Virginia E. Sanchez Korrol. From Colonia to Community: The History of Puerto Ricans in New York City. Chaps. 5-6.
  • Jack Agueros, “halfway to Dick and james,” in Hispanic New York, a sourcebook .
  • Dionisio Canas, “New York City, center and transit point for hispanic cultural nomadism,” in Hispanic New York, a Sourcebook.
  • Ruth Glasser. My Music is my Flag.
  • Juan Flores. Divided Arrival: Narratives of the Puerto Rican Migration, 1920-1950. .
  • Jesús Colón. A Puerto Rican in New York, & Other Sketches.
  • Sanchez, Boricua Power, Chap. 2.

• Short Work:
  • For Wed: discuss in one page how the life, work and voices of Puerto Ricans intersected with those of other New Yorkers based on this week’s readings.

• Documents:
  • TBA

Week 5 – Puerto Rican Migration 1945-1960s: Sources and Controversies

• Lorrin Thomas. Puerto Rican, Citizen. Chaps. 4
• Carmen Whalen. From Puerto Rico to Philadelphia: Puerto Rican Workers and Postwar Economies. Chap. 2.
• Nathan Glazer and Daniel P. Moynihan, Beyond the Melting Pot, 86-136.
• Center for Puerto Rican Studies. Labor Migration under Capitalism. Chap. 5.
• Nancy Foner, ” Transnationalism then and now: New York immigrants today and at the turn of the twentieth Century,” in Migration, Transnationalism and Race in a Changing New York.

• Movies:
  • Crowded Paradise (1956)
  • Blackboard Jungle (1955)
  • The Young Savages (1961)
  • West Side Story (1961)

• Short work:
  • Questions for Lorrin Thomas’s in-class visit, Monday 21—Chat session Sunday 2pm+

Week 6 – Work, Unions and Economic Survival, 1950s-1970s

• Carmen Whalen. “The Day the Dresses Stopped:’ Puerto Rican Women, the International Ladies Garmen Workers’ Union and the 1958 Dressmakers’ Strike,” in Ruiz and Chavez, Memoris and Migrations: Mapping Boricua and Chcana Histories.
• Joshua Freedman. Working Class New York. Chaps. 9-11.
• Andres Torres. Between Melting Pot and Mosaic: African Americans and Puerto Ricans in the New York Political Economy. Chap 3
• Leon FInk. Upheaval in the Quiet Zone. Ch. 4

• Recommended:
  • Frank Bonilla. “Manos que Sobran: Work, Migration and the Puerto Ricans in the 1990s”. In The Commuter Nation: Perspectives on Puerto Rican Migration, eds. Carlos Antonio Torre, Hugo Rodríguez Vecchini and William Burgos, 115–49.
  • Sanchez, Boricua Power, Chaps.
  • Frank Bonilla and Ricardo Campos. “A Wealth of Poor: Puerto Ricans in the New Economic Order.” Daedalus, 110:2 (1981),133-176.

• Short Work:
  • Work on your papers

• Documents:
• • Oral Histories (in class)

• Movie:
  • Emigration propaganda documentaries

• First Paper Due on Saturday March 5, Midnight. Submit via Sakai paper upload. Make sure you click OK to both requests in order to process the upload. Question will be posted here soon.

Week 7 – El Barrio and Beyond the Puerto Rican/Latino—Place, Community, Neighborhood or Ghetto?

• Patricia Cayo Sexton, Spanish Harlem. Chaps. 1-4.
• Arlene Davila. Barrios Dreams: Puerto Ricans, Latinos and the Neoliberal City. Chaps 1-2.
• Russell L. Sharman. The Tenants of East Harlem. Ch.3.

• Documents:
  • Shulman, Slums of New York (1938). ch. 15.

• Movie:
  • TBA

Week 8 – Dispersion and Communities: Morrisania, South Bronx, Chelsea, Williamsburg, East New York and the Lower East Side 1940s-1980s

• Schwartz. The New York Approach: Robert Moses, Urban Liberals and Redevelopment in the Inner City, pgs. 159-169.
• Oscar Lewis. La Vida. Ch. 33.
• Lyford. The Airtight Cage. Ch. 3

• Recommended:
  • Christopher Mele, Selling the Lower East Side: Culture, Real Estate, and Resistance in New York City.
  • The Bronx, chaps. tba.

• Movie:
  • From Mambo to Hip Hop

Week 9 – White Ethnics and Latinos

• No Readings

• Movies:
  • Saturday Night Fever
  • West Side Story

Week 10 – Puerto Rican and Latino Politics, 1960s-1990s: Mainstream, Nationalist and Radical

• Lorrin Thomas. Puerto Rican, Citizen. Chap. 6, Epilogue.
• Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, “Puerto Rican En Mi Corazón: The Young Lords, Black Power, and Puerto Rican Nationalism in the U.S. , 1966-1972,” Centro Journal XVIII, 001 (2006): 148-169.
• Young_Lords_Party—The_Puerto_Rican_Experience—Palante
• Jose Cruz, “Unfulfilled Promise,” Centro Journal.

• Recommended:
  • Mayer, “Save Hostos,” Centro Journal.
  • Basilio Serrano, “Rifle, Cañón, y Escopeta: A Chronicle of the Puerto Rican Student Union,” in The Puerto Rican Movement eds. Andrés Torres and José E. Velasquez. 124-143.
  • Iris Morales, “Palante, Siempre Palante: The Young Lords,” in The Puerto Rican Movement: Voices from the Diaspora, eds. Andrés Torres and José E. Velasquez. 210-227.
  • Louis Desipio, “The Pressures of Perpetual Promise: Latinos and Politics, 1960-2003,” in The Columbia History of Latinos in the United States Since 1960 ed. David G. Gutiérrez, 421-465.
  • Miguel “Mickey” Melendez, We Took the Streets: Fighting for Latino Rights with the Young Lords, 189-198.

• Documents:
  • “Young Lords Party: 13 Point Program and Platform,”
  • The FBI Files on Puerto Ricans

• Short Work:
  • Puerto Rican Dreams—A Multimedia History of the Puerto Rican Experience

• Movie:
  • The Young Lords

Week 11 – Cultural production: Looking backwards and forwards from the 1970s Cultural Explosion

• Singer/Martinez, “A South Bronx Latin Music Tale”
• Ed Morales, “The Story of Nuyorican Salsa,” in Hispanic New York.
• Carmen Dolores Hernandez, Puerto Rican Voices in English,” in Hispanic New York.
• Frank Figueroa, “New Yorks’ Latin Music Landmarks,” in Hispanic New York. (3 pages)
• Rivera, NYRIcans From the Hip Hop Zone, Ch. 3.

• Documents:
  • El Libro de la Salsa.
  • La Lupe.

• Short Work (WED):
  • Bring your favorite NY music
  • Find addresses related to our work in the readings or documents
  • Find a salsa-related web site that has some useful cultural/music history

• Second paper due Monday April 18th

Week 12 – Cubans and Dominicanos: From Radical Exiles to Proletarian Migrants—Washington Heights, Sunset Park

• Jesse Huffnung Garskof. A Tale of Two Cities: Santo Domingo and New York after 1950. Chaps. 5-8.
• Nancy Raquel Mirabal. “’Ser De Aquí’: Beyond The Cuban Exile Model.” Latino Studies, 1, 2003: 366-382.

• Recommended:
  • Patricia Pessar and Pamela Graham, “Dominicans: transnational identities and local Politics,” in Nancy Foner ed., New Immigrants in New York City.
  • Ramona hernandez and silvio torres-Saillant. “Dominicans in New York: Mens, Women and Prospects,” in Haslip Viera and Baver, eds. Latinos in new York.
  • Patricia R. Pessar. A Visa for a Dream: Dominicans in the United States . Chaps.
  • Luis Eduardo Guarnizo. “Los Dominicanyorks: the making of a binational society,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 533 (1994): 70-86.
  • Milagros Ricourt. Dominicans in New York City: Power from the Margins.
  • Carlos Decena. Tacit Subjects..
  • “Sus Diferenicas: Melba Alvarado, El Club Cubano Inter-Americano, and the Creation of Afro-Cubanidades in New York City, 1928-1995.” The Afro-Latina/o Reader. Ed. Miriam Jiménez Román and Juan Flores (Duke University Press, 2008).
  • Gerald Poyo. “The Cuban Experience in the United States , 1865-1940: Migration, Community and Identity.” Cuban Studies 21 (1991).
  • Louis A. Perez, On Becoming Cuban: Identity, Nationality, and Culture. Pgs. 432-444

• Short Work:
  • Research Sources Web Page

• Movie:
  • El Super
  • Nuebayol

Week 13 – New Latinos in New York, 1980s-2000: Queens

• Milagros Ricourt. Hispanas de Queens: Latino Pan Ethnicity in New York. Chaps. Introduction, 1-3, 6, 9.

• Movie:
  • Mambo Mouth

Week 14 – New Latinos in New York, 1980s-2000: Mexican Harlem, Pan-Latino Bronx

• Robert Smith. “Mexicans in New York: Membership in a New Immigrant Community,” in Latinos in New York: Communities in Transition. Chap.3.
• Arlene Davila. Barrios Dreams: Puerto Ricans, Latinos and the Neoliberal City. Chap 5.

• Recommended:
  • Robert Smith. Mexican New York: Transnational Lives of New Immigrants.
  • Michael Jones-Correa. Between two nations: the political predicament of Latinos in New York City.
  • Sarah Mahler. “Suburban Transnational Migrants: Long Island’s Salvadorans” in Migration, Transnationalization, and Race in a Changing New York. Ed. by Hector Cordero Guzman, Robert Smith and Ramon Grosfoguel.
  • Maria Cristina Garcia. Seeking Refuge: Central American Migration. .
  • Richard Wright and Mark Ellis, “Immigrants, the Native-born and the changing Division of Labor in New York City,” in Nancy Foner ed., New Immigrants in New York City.
  • Russell L. Sharman. The Tenants of East Harlem. Ch.5.
  • Michel Laguerre. American Oddysey, Haitians in New York.

• Documents:
  • TBA

• Short work:
  • Select one way to compare the experience of Cubans with that of Puerto Ricans or other Latino ethnic groups

• Movie:
  • Whose Barrio?