Customer Reviews (2)

How Sidney Mintz feels
"González is one of the most eloquent and important of Puerto Rico's contemporary writers. He rightly criticizes the vision of the past by which Spanish governance is gilded, while deep divisions within Puerto Rican society are glossed over. Any serious student of Puerto Rico, whether in literature, history, or the social sciences should be familiar with this essay."
-Sidney Mintz in The Americas

Many may not agree
I thought this was a great book. Many may not agree because it says that our culture was an African culture. My stepdad doesn't see it like that. He says our culture has african presence but not completely and african/caribbean culture. But this books shows that it was, and it was invaded by Europeans later on. I recomend you read it. the one by Jose Luis Gonzalez: Puerto Rico: the four storeyed country ... Read more

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Puerto Rican music in New York is given center stage in Ruth Glasser's original and lucid study. Exploring the relationship between the social history and forms of cultural expression of Puerto Ricans, she focuses on the years between the two world wars. Her material integrates the experiences of the mostly working-class Puerto Rican musicians who struggled to make a living during this period with those of their compatriots and the other ethnic groups with whom they shared the cultural landscape.Through recorded songs and live performances, Puerto Rican musicians were important representatives for the national consciousness of their compatriots on both sides of the ocean. Yet they also played with African-American and white jazz bands, Filipino or Italian-American orchestras, and with other Latinos. Glasser provides an understanding of the way musical subcultures could exist side by side or even as a part of the mainstream, and she demonstrates the complexities of cultural nationalism and cultural authenticity within the very practical realm of commercial music.Illuminating a neglected epoch of Puerto Rican life in America, Glasser shows how ethnic groups settling in the United States had choices that extended beyond either maintenance of their homeland traditions or assimilation into the dominant culture. Her knowledge of musical styles and performance enriches her analysis, and a discography offers a helpful addition to the text. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

GREAT SELLER!!!!!!!
I wish i could had reviewed this book when i got it; but we must wait till Amazon lets us in the indicated "date." This book arrived no later than 2-3 days after i purchased it! It is in PERFECT condition and the price was great too! I needed this book for class and was worried i wouldn't receive it on time. - Instead i received it before it was even required! Great SELLER! Highly recommended!!! <3

Good not only for Latinos, but for non-Latinos as well
The reason I say that is that many of the race and segregation issues which Latinos had to deal with, and how they dealt with those issues is largely unknown by the public at large.

These include the proliferation of "white" and "colored" latino bands, the role Puertoricans had in mainstream US bands based on their high chart reading skill, and of particular insterest to Puertoricans is the section on the history of the Plena.

The writing style is a little bit too academic.Even though it was written as an academic study, I still think the author sometimes used more ink than needed to make philosophical logical arguments to academia.

EDDIES IN THE MAINSTREAM
This book is everything other reviewers have said, and more. For it doesn't cover some encapsulated mono-ethnic phenomenon. Long before Diz, Puerto Ricans were a permanent part of mainstream jazz. They made up almost half JR Europe's WWI Hellfighters band, and were present in some of the most famous black swing bands (and you thought it was just Juan Tizol!) Moreover it was largely PR music and musicians who added to Cuban roots what turned them into US salsa. As anybody who has read my LATIN JAZZ knows, I couldn't have written parts of it without Glasser and I'm glad to acknowledge the fact publicly. JOHN STORM ROBERTS

Puerto Rican History seen through the evolution of its music
Ruth Glasser illustrates how the political circumstances, the particular situations of some of the social sectors, and the geographical settings of the Puerto Rican population produced the musicians that created a musicalcorpus which in turn identified Puerto Ricans as a people in the first halfof the 20th century. The text gives an account of how those musiciansforged the template of popular Puerto Rican music for the century, whilecontributing to the popular music of other Latin American cultures. Ithelps us comprehend, from a music perspective, how the interaction ofinnumerable conditions and situations and their consequences sculptured theelements of a national culture.

My Music is My Flag
"My Music Is My Flag" is a rare and genuine contribution, as well as a very provocative and insightful analysis, of the history of Puerto Ricans and their music in New York City during the period of 1917 through 1940.

However, this book "failed" to mention theenormous contributions and the importance of "Pregones"(Musicalcries of street vendors used to attract customers...in many cases they werebawdy, double entendre compositions. Lyrics patterned after the"pregon" also appeared in many compositions by Puerto Ricans).Many of these "pregones" were recorded in New York.A perfectexample was "El Botanico", done on a 78, inspired by ManuelJimenez "Canario".He recorded it with his band on June 8, 1929. Pedro Flores, Rafael Hernandez, Mirta Silva, Johnny Rodriguez and manyothers also recorded "pregones".Johnny Rodriguez did them allfrom New York.These "pregones" were very important, as theyreflected much about the economic and social conditions of the PuertoRicans.

Nevertheless, Ruth Glasser has made an important contribution toour understanding of the role Puerto Rican musicians have played in thedevelopment, growth and evolution of Latin music today.

Highlyrecommended! ... Read more

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Through direct engagement with gardeners, activists, and residents, Miranda Martinez shows the breadth and diversity of the community gardening movement and how these groups inserted themselves into local politics and development to create change. She demonstrates how real people are effective as social forces amid large scale urban change and looks at the complexities and contradictions involved in transformations of urban neighborhoods. One of the most important contributions of this study is its focus on the Puerto Ricans of the Lower East Side and their struggle to sustain its Latinidad. It goes deeply into the ethnic and cultural significance at the neighborhood and personal level to show the contradictory meanings of gentrification to Puerto Ricans and others, and more importantly, the ways that the history and culture of Puerto Ricans are ignored, devalued, and erased. By going to the grassroots, this book vividly demonstrates how Puerto Ricans interact with the global and local trends involved in gentrification and how the struggles against displacement can alter the boundaries of the process. ... Read more

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In Spanish. ... Read more

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How often are the perspectives of Puerto Rican students recognized, listened to, and taken into pedagogical account? Similarly, how often are educators cognizant of Puerto Rican students' struggle to make sense out of and fashion a voice from the multiple and often contradictory realities that comprise their daily existence? Not very often, according to this incisive study which deals with the complex struggles that these students confront in U.S. schools. This book challenges generally accepted perspectives and practices among teachers and calls for new pedagogies that respond to the complex needs of these students. ... Read more

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As a young anthropologist, Sidney Mintz undertook fieldwork in Jamaica, Haiti, and Puerto Rico. Fifty years later, the eminent scholar of the Caribbean returns to those experiences to meditate on the societies and on the island people who befriended him. These reflections illuminate continuities and differences between these cultures, but even more they exemplify the power of people to reveal their own history.

Mintz seeks to conjoin his knowledge of the history of Jamaica, Haiti, and Puerto Rico—a dynamic past born of a confluence of peoples of a sort that has happened only a few times in human history—with the ways that he heard people speak about themselves and their lives. Mintz argues that in Jamaica and Haiti, creolization represented a tremendous creative act by enslaved peoples: that creolization was not a passive mixing of cultures, but an effort to create new hybrid institutions and cultural meanings to replace those that had been demolished by enslavement. Globalization is not the new phenomenon we take it to be.

This book is both a summation of Mintz's groundbreaking work in the region and a reminder of how anthropology allows people to explore the deep truths that history may leave unexamined.

Customer Reviews (1)

Understanding the Caribbean
Sidney Mintz, who headed the anthropology department at Yale and helped found its counterpart at Johns Hopkins, is perhaps best known for his recent studies of food, notably Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History(Viking, 1985). His interest in sugar arose from field work in the Caribbean, which he began in Puerto Rico in the late 1940s while still working on his Ph.D. at Columbia. He soon widened his experience to include Jamaica, Haiti, and other regions.

The astonishing wealth to which the Caribbean colonies gave rise, Mintz writes, resulted from "the acquisitive energy of European masters and the cumulative forced labor of millions of workers, nearly all of them African," producing what he aptly calls "the first commercially marketed soft drugs ... tobacco, coffee, chocolate, and the sugar and molasses needed to sweeten them." Those drugs became instruments of power, used to remodel the class structure of Europe -- not least by supplying sweetened stimulants like sugared tea to fuel workers' punishing hours in mines, mills, and factories.

What interests Mintz far more than the fruits of Caribbean labor is the extraordinary creativity with which the mostly West African slaves and their offspring, torn from their homes and cultures, the sources of their identity, assembled new societies and new identities in the New World. The destruction of their histories gave rise to new histories, each markedly different, intimate, and profound. Mintz is an impatient pragmatist when it comes to questions of how history and anthropology relate. He insists that what anthropologists learn from their informants about their culture cannot be understood without appreciating the history that brought these individuals to where they are; nor can history be understood without seeing how it shapes individual lives.

The first of the ancient colonies Mintz discusses is Jamaica, where domination by particularly brutal and implacable British plantation owners at first gave rise to an almost clandestine peasant economy, and after freedom finally came, to rural villages established by Christian missionaries with programs of their own. The modern consequences of this history are, as Mintz learned at first hand in the 1950s, the racial stratification of status and wealth and a sharp division between the roles of men and women. The Jamaican peasantry live "in the shadow of the national history."

The history of Haiti, "the single most profitable colony in the history of the New World," was markedly different. Following the American and French revolutions, Haiti declared independence in 1804. The French did not accede until 1825, at an exorbitant price. The first revolution in history to end slavery, says Mintz, Haiti's was consequently the most terrifying: the United States did not recognize Haiti's independence until 1862. What followed was the collapse of the plantation system and the rise of a peasantry on whose backs "petty bureaucrats, coffee exporters, lawyers, military officers and merchants -- intermediaries of all sorts -- soon contrived to rest their collective weight." Much of what the elite skimmed was from a market economy run largely by women; nevertheless, as the first nation populated by emancipated slaves, power was largely undefined by race.

Mintz's third and most ancient colony was the first he visited in person, Puerto Rico. Unlike Jamaica and Haiti, Puerto Rico did not have an important plantation economy until the U.S. introduced mechanized agriculture in the 20th century, when the southern coast became "an ocean of sugarcane" - and then only for a period measured in decades, not centuries, largely because in the beginning Spain's attention had been concentrated on its colonies in mainland Latin America. Thus, Mintz estimates, "the rise in the number of physically mixed people on the island must have been continuous." Historical differences gave rise to differences in gender relations, race relations, and issues of self and violence, a "pattern of fierce chaperonage, elopement, feigned rage, and rapid reconciliation" typical of marriages that "fitted neatly with a strikingly different pattern, one of homicide ... brought on either by insults real or fictive to masculine identity or by sexual jealousy."

In his final and most fascinating chapter, "Creolization, Culture, and Social Institutions," Mintz shows how the enslaved responded to terrible constraints by creating new social institutions within slavery, built from assorted memories of the different cultures from which they came. Creolization is not mere mixture, like paint in a pot, but a synthesis arising from what might seem incommensurates. But while Jamaica and Haiti gave rise to creolized cultures and creole languages, Mintz shows, Puerto Rico, although slavery existed there, never experienced a massive influx of slaves and was never creolized.

Mintz persuasively demonstrates how human history intimately affects human response in cultural terms. Borrowing anthropologist Alfred Kroeber's argument that how culture comes to be is more distinctive of culture than what it is, Mintz says, "the process by which slaves dealt with the immediate postenslavement trauma they faced ... comes as close to understanding how culture comes to be than anything else in the human record I know of."

Three Ancient Colonies is adapted from a series of lectures honoring W. E. B. Du Bois that Mintz delivered at Harvard in 2003, and begins with a deft biographical sketch of Du Bois and the role his acquaintance with the Caribbean played in his own view of the history of African Americans. He honors the memory of Du Bois and the men and women he came to know well in the rural communities of the Caribbean in this passionate, humorous, persuasively argued book.
... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, 2nd ed., brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 915 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.The Early Civilizations in the Americas Reference Library provides a comprehensive overview of the history of the regions of the American continents in which two of the world's first civilizations developed: Mesoamerica (the name for the lands in which ancient civilizations arose in Central America and Mexico) and the Andes Mountains region of South America (in present-day Peru and parts of Bolivia, northern Argentina, and Ecuador). In both regions, the history of civilization goes back thousands of years. ... Read more

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This is the story of the great right fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Roberto Clemente. An outstanding athlete and a dedicated family man, whose love for his native land of Puerto Rico was unsurpassed. This book tells an inspiring story of this Baseball Hall of Famer. Great reading for young sports fans. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Pride of Puerto Rico: The Life of Roberto Clemente
I really enjoyed reading about Roberto Clemente's life. The book was very inspiring and I learned a lot more about Roberto Clemente reading this book made me feel much more pride in being Hispanic. It goes to show that everyone and anyone can accomplish what they want in life if you are committed to it. I like many others really admire Clemente because he didn't let the racist comments get to him or his lack of speaking English get between what was his most important goal in his life . . .his baseball career. I think that he showed that he was very committed to his baseball because he will play while being hurt or not, he wouldn't give up baseball for anything. In my opinion he deserved all of his awards and trophies, the respect he receives from many people and all of the young kids who look at his accomplishments and wish to be like him. If you ask me he is truly the pride of Puerto Rico.

-Charlene

Book of Pride
I enjoyed this book so much.Coincidently I finished it just before seeing a ceremony in honor of Roberto Clemente with his widow Vera present at the 2006 MLB All-Star game.From reading this book I understand why the word "Pride" is always used when discussing Roberto Clemente.This book carres the theme of Roberto's pride from beginning to end.Pride not only in himself but in his family and country.Many may say this is not a book about baseball, but those who know the magic of baseball understand that you can't seperate the game from the players.It is the great person in the player that makes the game of baseball so wonderful.Roberto was a great baseball player and an even greater man. Puerto Rico should feel honored in having him as one of their native sons.

Pride of Puerto Rico
My 12-yr old son read this book for a report.
He didn't complain too much and finished pretty quickly so I guess he liked it.

Very nice and easy to understand.
It was so good that when I received it, I could not put it down till the end. That night I went to bed at 4:33AM. Mr.Robert Walker, 2 thumbs up to a well documented piece of art. Again THANK YOU for this biography.

It was my favorite
He palyed for the Pittsburgh Pirates.He was the youngest in his family, just like me.His dad made alot of money compared to the others that lived around them.Roberto rode his bike to another town to try out for asoftball team.It was only a couple of miles from his home.His schoolwas trying to teach him to speak English, and he didn't do very good, buthe tried. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Emotionally intense.
I recently returned from Puerto Rico and on my walk up the coast to old San Juan saw a jagged hillside on the beautiful ocean filled with cardboard homes built on slopes and stilts. It struck me as very odd; the gorgeous Ocean with this somewhat small enclave of slum housing... surrounded by the beautiful streets and history of old San Juan. I then saw two little girls in Catholic School uniforms, giggling and running down to the steps into the Slum. I asked a travel partner who explained that the place the little girls were running to with the windows that were open holes, the trash and bums in the alley, was one of the most notorious slums around; La Perla.

I left Puerto Rico with the thoughts of my wonderful hotel and gorgeous dinners but I could not get the picture of La Perla out of my mind. It was such a strange sight; again a slum of all slums on one of the most goregeous pieces of world I've seen. I became enthralled and interested in what made this small piece of the earth they way it was. In my research, I came across Oscar Lewis' study of this place. Interestingly enough, he wrote it in 1964.... and it seems this small slum hasn't changed at all since then.

I am about a quarter through the book and am absolutely enthralled.The tragedy of poverty and how it repeats itself is evident very early on in this study.

The main character, Fernanda, (Nanda) a child of poverty of which this story begins, goes on in interviews about her life. From her childhood,being at first abandoned by her Mother then to reuniting with her Mother, all the while being abused physically and emotionally by all in her life. She becomes a "bride" at 14 having a child thereafter by a man her mother 'adores' and yet her beats her.This is normal life.

Nanda's children lives are also captured in their own voice with an earily similar account.I've found myself confused... thinking I've already read passages... I have but it is of other characters in the study. Poverty breads poverty.


I'll let you know what I think when I finish the entire study; it is detailed and intense.

Puertorican family"s struggle to survive
Lewis was able to go inside a family that trusted him enough to show just how difficult life can be. This book makes you think and shows you just how grinding poverty can eat away at ones soul. It also manages to show the vibrancy this family has. you are able to see the world from different members attempts at making a better life. It tells vividly how the streets of New York which hold so much promise ultimately cause most members of this family so much pain. This is a must read not only for latinos but for everyone. This book is more about the endurance of a soul as it is about ethnicity.

Worthy Study
La Vida is an anthropological study that tells the story, in their own words, of an extended Puerto Rican family in San Juan and in New York. What a lively and colorful culture! If you want to get a sense of life among Puerto Ricans in the 1960s who exist low on the economic scale, this book will tell you everything you could possibly want to know about their individual lives from their perspective. The perspective is important because it can change the way the reader views a person until she hears that character's own voice. Every day I looked forward to "living" with this family. ... Read more