September
2001 – From images of hopeful passengers aboard New York-bound steamships to Carnegie Hall sopranos, baseball players, religious processions and political rallies,
Pioneros: Puerto Ricans in New York City, 1896-1948 vividly captures the story of Puerto Rican migration. Co-authors Felix Matos-Rodriguez, director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies
(Centro) at Hunter College, and Centro archivist Pedro Juan Hernandez have selected 200 photos taken in New York from a collection of more than 60,000 in the Centro library for this trail-blazing, bilingual
book just released by Arcadia Publishing.
"Replete with determination, humor, dignity, and beauty, the photographs and captions in this marvelous collection document the early history of Puerto Rican
migration to New York City and the evolution family and community life in the city," says Professor John Mollenkopf, Director of the Center for Urban Research, City University of New York Graduate
Center. "It is bound to become a treasured resource."
Through these photos of the pioneros—pioneering Puerto Rican migrants who established themselves in New York City between the
1890s and the end of World War II—the authors capture a glimpse of daily lives and individual and collective stories.
According to the authors, the demographic profile of Puerto Ricans migrating to the
U.S. changed after 1898, when the U.S. took political control. Though some Puerto Rican elites continued to migrate, the majority of the new arrivals worked as cigar-makers, domestics, garment workers
or in other low-paying, service jobs.
"Between 1910 and 1945, the Puerto Rican community in New York grew from about 1,600 to 135,00 people," says Professor Matos-Rodriguez, a historian. "This was a
time when the community was spreading its roots in the city's social, political, cultural, and economic life."
The book is organized into seven chapters: The Steamboat Puerto Rican Community; The Faces of
the Puerto Rican Migration; Family and Neighborhood Life; Organizing for Social and Political Participation; Cultural Life and Entertainment; Migration and the World Wars; and The Airborne Migration of the
late 1940s.
"Usually researchers come to Centro for photos specific to their project," say Mr. Hernandez, the archivist. "With this book, we wanted to create something much broader—a portrait
of the Puerto Rican family in New York. We also wanted to show what's not well known, that Puerto Ricans came to the U.S. as early as the 1890s, and a vibrant community existed in the 1920s that
interacted with many other ethnic groups."
Members of the media are invited to attend a book party to celebrate the publication of Pioneros. The event takes place on Thursday, October
30 at 6:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble in the Citicorp Building, 160 East 54th Street, close to Third Avenue.
Pioneros can be ordered on-line at
