Boricua Literature

Book excerpt: Since the invasion and colonization of Puerto Rico in 1898, all Puerto Ricans are both American citizens and colonial subjects by birth according to international law. Over a third of this population currently lives in the continental U.S. forming one of the nation's most significant "minority" communities. Yet no complete study of mainland Puerto Rican—or Boricua—literature has been written. Until now. Boricua Literature is the first literary history of the Puerto Rican colonial diaspora. The result of a decade of research in archives and special collections in the Caribbean and in the U.S., Lisa Sánchez González argues that the writing of the Puerto Rican diaspora should be considered an integral field of study. Covering 100 years of Boricua literary history, each chapter looks at the single writer or group of writers who are most emblematic of their respective generation, from William Carlos Williams and Arturo Schomburg, to latina feminism and salsa music. The story of an American community of color, Boricua Literature is also about contemporary critical race and gender studies. Unlike virtually all studies concerning mainland Puerto Rican writing, Lisa Sánchez González is less concerned with "cultural identity" than with unearthing a substantive cultural intellectual history. The first explicitly literary historical analysis of Boricua Literature, this definitive study proposes a new and discreet area of literary historical research in American studies.