CENTRO


 

BOOK PRESENTATION & DISCUSSION:
"Pioneros": Puerto Rican Migration to New York, 1896-1948

Speaker
: Félix V. Matos RodrÍguez

 
OLD PICTURES AND MATERIALS DOCUMENT PUERTO RICAN HISTORY

If you think there are too many images of the Haslip family, if you think there are too many images of the Torres family, if you think there are too many images of Pura Belpre, you are right. This is an askewed history, we are working with the materials we have in the collection and we are working with the documents that people have donated. So I would be happy to accept your criticism but then I would also challenge you to go back to your families, to go back to your friends and ask, where are the old pictures? Where are all the old materials? Do you know anyone from that generation who might have letters, documents, letters, flyers? Those are the things we need to preserve because we all make history.


We want to have a collection that is as inclusive of the Puerto Rican experience in New York City as possible. So if you find gaps, we are happy to acknowlege them but then we challenge you to partner with us in trying to improve the quality, the breadth of our collection. That’s one of the things, as we were putting the book together, Pedro Juan and I talked a lot about. We didn’t have enough family images indoors, just to give you an example.


We have a chapter for example on the effects of World War I and World War II on the Puerto Rican migrant experience. One of the key elements of that experience is that while some of the men were fighting, the women were taking some of those jobs on the homefront, working on all kinds of industries--we didn’t have any images. We made a reference to them in the chapter, we didn’t have the images we wanted to juxtapose next to the images of the soldiers, the women working in the factories or the women who served. You will find that we need more documentation of that early period. So part of our sharijng was also a call for people out there, so you can help us fill in the gaps of the things we don’t have in the collection at the Centro and also so that we reflect more on this early moment of Puerto Rican/Latino history in the city.



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