Books

From Colonia to Community: The History of Puerto Ricans in New York City  by Virginia E. Sánchez Korrol "In the early decades of this century, a significant number of Puerto Ricans from the countryside and urban centers of the island began to migrate..."
BUY NOW!

Pioneros: Puerto Ricans in New York City 1896-1948 by Felix V. Matos Rodriguez, Pedro Juan Hernandez "Steamship travel between San Juan and New York usually lasted between four and five days..."     BUY NOW!

The Puerto Rican Diaspora: Historical Perspectives  by Carmen Teresa Whalen (Editor), Víctor Vazquez-Hernandez (Editor) Puerto Ricans have a long history of migrating to and building communities in various parts of the United States in search of a better life. From their arrival in Hawai'i in 1900 to the post-World War II era—during which communities...
BUY NOW!

Divided Borders: Essays on Puerto Rican Identity by Juan Flores - A collection of the essays on history, literature and culture by the most celebrated commentator on Puerto Rican and Caribbean culture in the United States, by the winner of the casa de las Américas award for his monograph on Puerto Rican identity.    BUY NOW!

The Near Northwest Side Story: Migration, Displacement, and Puerto Rican Families by Gina Perez "On a cold, rainy Chicago morning in late October 1997, I left my Humboldt Park apartment and drove my red pickup truck south on California..."  
BUY NOW!

Barrio Dreams : Puerto Ricans, Latinos, and the Neoliberal City  by Arlene Dávila "In Bodega Dreams, Ernesto Quinonez's novel set in El Barrio, the hopeful protagonist Willie Bodega dreams of building a Latino professional class born and bred..."    BUY NOW!

National Performances : The Politics of Class, Race, and Space in Puerto Rican Chicago by Ana Y. Ramos-Zayas "The process of nation formation, like many other processes of identity formation, emerges at the boundaries of group membership..."   BUY NOW!

Sugar, Slavery, and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century Puerto Rico by Luis A. Figueroa  " The contributions of the black population to the history and economic development of Puerto Rico have long been distorted and underplayed, Figueroa contends. Focusing on the southeastern coastal region of Guayama, ..."     BUY NOW!

The History of Puerto Rico: From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation (Paperback)  BUY NOW!
 

American Gunfight: The Plot to Kill Harry Truman--and the Shoot-out that Stopped It
by Stephen Hunter (Author), John Jr. Bainbridge (Author) "On November 1, 1950, two Puerto Rican Nationalists named Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola pulled German automatic pistols and attempted to storm Blair House, at..." BUY NOW!

Fiesta en Puerto Rico by Textos De Tere Da'vila (Photographer) "Traditional festivals and celebrations are an important manifestation of the Puerto Rican national culture..."    BUY NOW!

My Music Is My Flag: Puerto Rican Musicians and Their New York Communities, 1917-1940 by Ruth Glasser  "One spring day in 1931 a delegation of some of Puerto Rico's most outstanding musicians went to Viejo San Juan to see the then governor..."

BUY NOW!

Living in Spanglish: The Search for Latino Identity in America by Ed Morales "To be Spanglish is to live in multisubjectivity; that is, in a space where race is indeterminate, and where class is slipperier than ever..."

BUY NOW!

Official Spanglish Dictionary  by Editors of Generation n, Bill Teck, Bill Cruz  "They're all Spanglish words -- and you can hear them on the streets of Miami, Los Angeles, Nueva York, and lots of other ciudades across the country where English and Spanish seem to blend and bend into a mind-boggling, very foni hybrid of two different languages..."   BUY NOW!

Puerto Rican Chicago (Images of America) by Wilfredo Cruz "Puerto Ricans have a long history in Chicago. Beginning in the 1920s, a handful of middle-class Puerto Rican families sent their daughters and sons to study at prestigious universities in the city. While most returned to Puerto Rico, migration to Chicago peaked during the 1950s and 1960s. Enticed by the prospect of a better life for their families and future generations, thousands of Puerto Ricans came to Chicago in search of a brighter tomorrow. They came to Chicago as American citizens, yet still faced rampant..."

BUY NOW!

New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone by Raquel Z. Rivera "In this brief, scholarly book, freelance journalist Rivera acknowledges Puerto Ricans for their contributions to hip-hop music over the past 30 years. It's debatable just how much credit is deserved, considering Rivera comes up with only a handful of recognizable players who predate the culture-wide "Latino boom" of the past few years-Fat Joe, Angie Martinez and the late Big Punisher, the biggest-selling Latino rapper of all time. But she still crafts a persuasive revisionist history through painstaking research and original..."   BUY NOW!

Juan Bobo : Four Folktales from Puerto Rico by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand, Ernesto Ramos Nieves (Illustrator) "Bernier-Grand retells a quartet of traditional folktales from her native land for this latest offering in the I Can Read series. Juan Bobo, a well-meaning scamp, tries to be good, but like a Puerto Rican Amelia Bedelia, he continually thwarts his mother by taking each of her instructions quite literally. Complaining that the water buckets are too heavy for him to carry, for instance, he's told by his exasperated mother to use something else. Juan Bobo settles on a pair of baskets, and the water, naturally, ends up in a..."    BUY NOW!

Boricuas: Influential Puerto Rican.. by Roberto Santiago "While it could have been more strictly organized (i.e., vaguely thematic chapters include "History and Politics" and "Anxiety and Assimilation," currents present in almost every piece), this excellent anthology of essays, fiction, poetry, screenplays and other works by writers of Puerto Rican heritage shimmers with interesting reading. In a buoyant introduction, Santiago describes his own, youthful discovery of Puerto Rican writers?"the first book I read by a Puerto Rican author was the one the Jesuits at Xavier ...."   BUY NOW!

Puerto Rico: The Trials of the Oldest Colony in the World by Jose Trias Monge (Author) "The United States took over Puerto Rico from Spain, together with the Philippine Islands, about a century ago..." BUY NOW!

History of Puerto Rico: A Panorama Of Its People by Fernando Pico (Author) "The Caribbean is much more than the sea represented on maps..."   BUY NOW!

Sponsored Identities - This is a very acute study of cultural politics in Puerto Rico. The author exposes the dynamics that make culture such an important forum to debate identity among Puerto Ricans on the island and abroad. It is an excellent book and a must read for anyone interested in contemporary Puerto Rican studies. BUY NOW!

Boricua Power: A Political History of Puerto Ricans in the United States (Paperback)
by José Ramón Sánchez
BUY NOW!

Colonial Subjects: Puerto Ricans in a Global Perspective by Ramón Grosfoguel (Author) "This book provides an alternative reading of Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans within the "modern world-system" (Wallerstein 1974), or, as Walter Mignolo has recently proposed,..." BUY NOW!

Colonial Dilemma: Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Puerto Rico by Edwin Melendez (Editor) "Puerto Rico has been a U.S. neo-colony since 1898, when the island was taken as war booty of the Spanish-American War..." BUY NOW!

Bodega Dreams : A Novel by Ernesto Quinonez  by Ernesto Quinonez "Growing up in Spanish Harlem, Chino knew he needed three things to survive: a solid friend (his pana), a decent nickname--not some lame thing his parents had called him, like Tito or Googie--and a reputation that he would rather lose a tooth or get his ribs broken than back out of a fight. With the help of Sapo, "the meanest and ugliest kid on the block," Chino manages to make it as far as college before his life is endangered. He even attracts the attention of Nancy Saldivia, a beautiful Pentecostal girl so genuinely devout that she has earned..."   BUY NOW!

The Tainos : Rise and Decline of the People Who Greeted Columbus by Irving Rouse "Although Columbus's diaries contain almost all firsthand information about the Tainos, who became extinct as a result of European colonization, the author has managed to piece together a robust chronicle of their past. Sifting through reports on Caribbean archaeological sites and plumbing studies of language and biology for historical clues, he traces the Tainos back to the initial colonization of the..."   BUY NOW!

Pride of Puerto Rico: The Life of Roberto Clemente by Paul Robert Walker "A biography of the baseball superstar from Puerto Rico who, before his untimely death in a 1972 airplane crash, was noted for his achievements on and off the baseball field."

BUY NOW!

Down These Mean Streets by Piri Thomas "The 30th anniversary edition of this classic memoir about growing up in Spanish Harlem includes an afterword reminding us that its streets are even meaner now, thanks to crack cocaine and the dismantling of government poverty programs. As a dark-skinned Puerto Rican, born in 1928, Piri Thomas faced with painful immediacy the absurd contradictions of America's racial attitudes (among people of all colors) in a time of wrenching social change."  BUY NOW!

When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago "Santiago's autobiographical account cinematically recaptures her past and her island culture. What is particularly appealing about Santiago's story is the insight it offers to readers unaware of the double bind Puerto Rican Americans find themselves in: the identity in conflict. Is [she] black or white? Is she rural or urban? Even more importantly, is she Puerto Rican or is she American? "  BUY NOW!

From Bomba to Hip-Hop by Juan Flores  "Neither immigrants nor ethnics, neither foreign nor "hyphenated Americans" in the usual sense of that term, Puerto Ricans in New York have created a distinct identity both on the island of Puerto Rico and in the cultural landscape of the United States. Juan Flores considers the uniqueness of Puerto Rican culture and identity in relation to that of other Latino groups in the United States -- as well as to other minority groups, especially African Americans...."   BUY NOW!

The Puerto Rican Nation on the Move by Jorge Duany "More than one hundred years ago, the French scholar Ernest Renan (1990[1882]) posed the question, "What is a nation?..."

BUY NOW!

Silent Dancing: A Partial Remembrance of.. by Judith Ortiz Cofer "Cofer's talent for story telling was learned at the knee of her grandmother, "Mama." In this entertaining and perceptive book, the author's life unfolds through tales set in Mama's room, in Puerto Rican pueblos, and in Paterson, New Jersey apartments. Her father joins the U.S. Navy, and when his ship is in port in New York City, the family lives in New Jersey; when he is at sea, they move back to Puerto Rico to a life with family and many friends...."

BUY NOW!

The Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation by David C. Brotherton, Luis Barrios "It is probably safe to say that the majority of studies of inner city inhabitants, particularly those that focus on members of youth gangs, have..."

BUY NOW!

Once a King, Always a King : The Unmaking of a Latin King by Reymundo Sanchez As a sequel to My Bloody Life, Sanchez's memoir of sex, drugs and violence in the Chicago street gang the Latin Kings, the author recounts the hardships of post gang life. He vividly describes the struggle to separate himself from his previous "drunken, drug-crazed, violent" persona. Initially, the temptations of his "past glory" prove irresistible, and while he does not rejoin the gang, he moves back to the..."  BUY NOW!

My Bloody Life
The making of a Latin King by Reymundo Sanchez In My Bloody Life, Reymundo Sanchez tells a chillingly sad tale, from his birth in the back of a pickup truck in Puerto Rico to the day he quit the Latin Kings gang, 21 years later. From the first page, his narrative is unpretentious, disarmingly honest, and horrifyingly riveting. His early years were so full of pain and abuse that by the time "

BUY NOW!

Conversations with the Capeman: The Untold Story of Salvador Agron
In 1959, Salvador Agron, then 16, was part of a Puerto Rican gang that killed two teen-aged boys who'd been mistaken for rival gang members. The case fired the media. Known as Capeman, for the red cape he wore during gang fights, Agron was saved from his death-row conviction by Eleanor Roosevelt's intervention. Jacoby was working on a doctorate in criminal justice when he began corresponding with Agron in 1973. This book, which alternates between the perspectives of Agron and Jacoby, is based on 12 years of correspondence. BUY NOW!

Puerto Rican Obituary by Pedro Pietri
Pedro Pietri passed away on a cloud...literally. He was on a flight over Texas when he died. I'm sure that was how he wanted it. He was not born in the U.S. and so he did not die on the U.S. He passed on in mid-flight as if born to the clouds. OBITUARIOS is a truly great Poem. To call it a Poem does not really do it justice. It is an epitaph, an homage to the postwar migration of thousands of Puerto Rican Nationals who believed in the American Dream. This little book needs to be read. It not only represents the ideologies defining the Nuyorican experience, but it also continues the tradition begun by Beat poet greats such as Kerouac and Ginsberg. BUY NOW!

Luis Munoz Marin: 
Puerto Rico's Democratic Revolution by A. W. Maldonado - This is a biography of Luis Muñoz Marín, beginning at the turn of the last century, when his father, Luis Muñoz Rivera, was a principal leader, trough Muñoz's mandate as puerto Rico's first elected Governor in four and a half centuries, and ending with his death at the age of 82, on April 30, 1980. It is a narrative about profound economic, political, and cultural changes in Puerto Rico.

BUY NOW!

Arthur Alfonso Schomburg: Black Bibliophile and Collector  by Elinor Des Verney Sinnette This is the first full biography of the pioneering black collector whose detective work laid the foundation for the study of black history and culture. Born in Puerto Rico in 1874, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg came to New York militantly active in Caribbean revolutionary struggles. He searched out the hidden records of the black experience and built a collection of books, manuscripts, and art that had few rivals.    BUY NOW!

The Way It Was and Other Writtings by Jesus Colon, Edna Acosta-Belen, Virginia Sanchez Korrol - The Way It Was and Other Writtings is an autobiographical recollection of life and the evolution of the Puerto Rican community in New York City and its major figures and organizations. The book documents the strength, spirit of survival and solidarity, and life experiences that Colón shared with many other working-class migrants and politically radical communities.    BUY NOW!

Puerto Rico's Revolt for Independence: El Grito De Lares  by Olga Jimenez De Wagenheim "The book has the power to cause deep impact upon the reader . . .
fascinating reading that makes us witnesses of an episode in our history that was both great and tragic."    BUY NOW!

Never too late to make a U-Turn: An Educational Pledge & 15 Questions leading to Self-Development
by Alberto Cappas
This book serves as a guide for students to begin appreciating the art of personal growth and development. An excellent tool for the individual student, parents, educators and counselors; excellent for group discussions

Required reading for Survival:
Please join the movement against ignorance by sharing this important pledge/poem with our communities. BUY NOW!

Affinity for Trouble, A Puerto Rican Story by Héctor Varela
Why is Affinity for Trouble — a Puerto Rican story?
Because it takes place in Puerto Rico during the decisive years when the Puerto Rican culture was most affected by its compulsory association with America. It was during this period that the form of autonomous government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico grasped fully the power to rule. America was successful in helping to establish a democratic autonomous government which has stood for over half of a century. BUY NOW!
 

Doña Julia and other Selected Poems by Poet
Alberto O. Cappas

Clear. Natural. Poignant.
These words accurately describe Alberto O. Cappas’ work. Cappas understands the suffering and struggles of Puerto Ricans living in Mainland America as well as in Puerto Rico. His poetry traces their hopes, problems, and misconceptions from the island to the mainland where they discover that dreams do die hard.  BUY NOW!

One of the founding members of The Young Lords describes his role in creating the Puerto Rican activist group in this engaging memoir set in New York City's Bronx and Harlem. In 1969, inspired by the "world of revolution" erupting around them, Melendez and several of his friends decided to create an organization that would fight, sometimes literally, for the rights and improvement of the Latino community.   BUY NOW!

Cook Books

Daisy Cooks! : Latin Flavors That Will Rock Your World (Hardcover)

A Taste of Puerto Rico : Traditional and New Dishes from the Puerto Rican Community (Hardcover)

Puerto Rican Cuisine in America: Nuyorican and Bodega Recipes (Paperback)

Homestyle Puerto Rican Cooking, Traditional Recipes with a Modern Touch!

Cocina criolla (Paperback)

Puerto Rican Cookery (Hardcover)

Cocina criolla (Hardcover)

Homestyle Puerto Rican Cooking, NOW in Spanish!

Music Books

Cada Cabeza Es Un Mundo - Relatos e Historias De Hector Lavoe

La historia del cantante, Hector Lavoe.

Recordando a Tito Puente

Tito Puente and the Making of Latin Music

Azucar! the Celia Cruz Biography

Celia 
by Celia Cruz, Ana Cristina Reymundo

My Name is Celia: The Life of Celia Cruz

The Salsa Guidebook 
Author: Rebeca Mauleon