THIRTY YEARS OF PUERTO RICAN STUDIES CELEBRATED AND EXAMINED DURING NATIONAL CONFERENCE AT CUNY GRADUATE CENTER OCT. 21-23

Date: October 18, 2004
Contact: Félix Matos-Rodríguez, felix.matos@hunter.cuny.edu
Phone: (212) 772-5715

Thirty years of Puerto Rican Studies as an academic field will be celebrated and examined during the biennial Puerto Rican Studies Association conference, co-hosted by The Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College and the Center for Latino/Latin American/Caribbean Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center.

The conference will be held at the City University of New York's Graduate Center, located at 365 Fifth Avenue, beginning Thursday, Oct. 21 through Saturday, Oct. 23. For more information, visit www.centropr.org.

"Our 2004 conference will commemorate three decades of Puerto Rican Studies and the pioneering research of the Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños at Hunter College," said Pedro A. Cabán, PRSA president. "But more than a celebration, the conference hopes to provoke a critical look at the field and its importance in academia and interdisciplinary studies."

Formed in 1973 as a research center to complement Puerto Rican Studies units of the CUNY system, the Center for Puerto Rican Studies (Centro) helped define and stabilize the emerging field of Puerto Rican Studies through its many research initiatives, according to Cabán. During the early years, it was important for the academic community and Centro to establish the field's legitimacy in the university and have an activist scholarly agenda that challenged the prevalent way of thinking.

"Thirty years after Puerto Rican Studies tenuously arrived on the academic scene, the significance of this issue has not diminished," Cabán said. "In fact, the favorable conditions that built the foundation and sustained Puerto Rican Studies have eroded and provoked debates about its continued validity and relevance in the university."

Cabán also said that this conference will also provide a forum for reflection on the institutional development, intellectual maturation and distinctive challenges that Puerto Rican Studies faces during a period of remarkable change in United States society and globally.

"We are honored to be hosting national and international scholars to discuss issues of relevance to the Puerto Rican community," said Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, Centro director and conference chair. He added that the conference included participants from Puerto Rico, the United States, Spain and Japan, among others. He also said that colleagues from the fields of Latino, Ethnic, and African-American Studies will participate in the conference.

Puerto Ricans began to arrive in New York City and the mainland in the late 19th century. There are now about 830,000 Puerto Ricans in the city's five boroughs and 1.5 million in the tri-state area.

The conference will have numerous panel discussions throughout its three days. The highlights include a special panel at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 21, "Research Advocacy and Empowerment: Puerto Ricans in Academia, Public Policy and Politics."

Matos Rodríguez will moderate the panel and the speakers will be Ricardo Fernandez, president of Lehman College, Marilyn Aguirre-Molina, public health professor at Columbia University, Sara Melendez, former president of the Independent Sector, Janice Petrovich, program director at the Ford Foundation and New York State Assemblyman Peter Rivera, D-Bronx.

Ida Castro will give the keynote address at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 23. Castro is an attorney and currently holds the Haywood Burns Chair of Civil Rights at CUNY Law School. She was the former commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Personnel under Gov. James McGreevey and was the first Latino to hold that position. In 1998, she was nominated by President Bill Clinton and confirmed to serve as chairwoman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in Washington, D.C.

"This is the most significant gathering of Puerto Rican intellectuals in the world," said Matos Rodriguez. He added that the conference includes panels on Puerto Rican history, culture, music, literature, politics, art, and education, among others.

About 50 panels have been organized with more than 200 panelists listed on the conference program. Book exhibits, a film festival, performances at the Nuyorican Poets Café and the Pregones Theater, and a "noche bohemia" in El Barrio, also known as East Harlem, round off the program.

The conference is part of Centro's ongoing 30 th anniversary celebration and the anniversary sponsors include: Banco Popular (Presenting Sponsor), Altria Services Corporation, Washington Mutual, El Diario-La Prensa, Con Edison and Hunter College's Office of the President.

Centro is the only university-based research institute in the United States devoted to the interdisciplinary study of the Puerto Rican experience. Centro is also the oldest and largest Latino research and archival institution in the Northeast. Its library and archives are the principal Puerto Rican studies research collection in the country and the most extensive Latino research and archival facility in the Northeastern United States. It is also the only library and archives in the state of New York exclusively dedicated to Puerto Rican and Latino documentation.

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About Hunter
With a highly diverse student population of more than 20,000, Hunter is the largest college in the City University of New York (CUNY) system and the first choice among all CUNY applicants. Founded in 1870, the College offers more than 170 undergraduate and graduate programs. Hunter is noted for its professional schools in education, health sciences, nursing and social work, as well as its excellence in the liberal arts. Heralded as the "Crown Jewel of CUNY" by The Princeton Review, Hunter College has a distinguished reputation for nurturing talented minority scientists and meeting the challenge of providing high-quality science education in the 21st century. The College also oversees the Hunter College Campus Schools serving gifted and talented students, preschool through grade 12. For more information about Hunter College, please visit our Web site at http://www.hunter.cuny.edu.

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