Colonial Migrants at the Heart of Empire - (American Crossroads) by Ismael García-Colón

About the Book

"Colonial Migrants at the Heart of Empire is the first comprehensive look at the experiences of Puerto Rican migrant workers in mainland US agriculture in the twentieth century. Ismael Garcâia-Colâon investigates the origins, establishment, and development of the Puerto Rico Farm Labor Program by the government of Puerto Rico in 1947, which placed hundreds of thousands of migrant workers on US farms and fostered the emergence of many stateside Puerto Rican communities. Colonial Migrants is both a labor history and an ethnography of the experience of migrant farm workers in US rural communities, evoking the violence, fieldwork, food, lodging, surveillance, and coercion that Puerto Ricans encountered on farms. One of the first books to explore the particular prejudice and racism faced by island farmworkers as they interacted with US rural communities, it reveals the dual status of Puerto Ricans as both US citizens and racialized "foreign others." Despite the complexities of navigating this dual status, many workers ultimately stayed in these communities and contributed to the demographic and ethnic changes of rural America"--

Book Synopsis

Colonial Migrants at the Heart of Empire is the first in-depth look at the experiences of Puerto Rican migrant workers in continental U.S. agriculture in the twentieth century. The Farm Labor Program, established by the government of Puerto Rico in 1947, placed hundreds of thousands of migrant workers on U.S. farms and fostered the emergence of many stateside Puerto Rican communities. Ismael García-Colón investigates the origins and development of this program and uncovers the unique challenges faced by its participants.

A labor history and an ethnography, Colonial Migrants evokes the violence, fieldwork, food, lodging, surveillance, and coercion that these workers experienced on farms and conveys their hopes and struggles to overcome poverty. Island farmworkers encountered a unique form of prejudice and racism arising from their dual status as both U.S. citizens and as "foreign others," and their experiences were further shaped by evolving immigration policies. Despite these challenges, many Puerto Rican farmworkers ultimately chose to settle in rural U.S. communities, contributing to the production of food and the Latinization of the U.S. farm labor force.

From the Back Cover

"Colonial Migrants at the Heart of Empire brilliantly examines the experience of Puerto Rican migrant farmworkers in the United States within an immigration regimen that categorizes them as racially inferior citizens and inefficient, expensive workers. Relying on a thick historical ethnography, it bridges the study of labor, colonialism, immigration, and race. This is scholarship at its best!"--Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, author of Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America

"Grounded in extensive research, this book presents the most comprehensive examination so far of Puerto Rican postwar migrant farm labor in the United States. The book provides a comparative approach to other colonial and U.S. labor programs and closely examines migrant life in the labor camps, migrants' relationship with U.S. rural communities, and labor and civil rights struggles."--Edgardo Meléndez, author of Sponsored Migration: The State and Puerto Rican Postwar Migration to the United States

"In this highly original work, historian and ethnographer Ismael García-Colón documents the social construction of Puerto Rican migrant labor and its role in shaping U.S. immigration policies. Among his many insights, he elucidates the courageous efforts of Puerto Rican workers to thwart racism and commodification with their enlightened ideals of social justice."--David Griffith, coauthor of Fishers at Work, Workers at Sea: A Puerto Rican Journey through Labor and Refuge

Review Quotes

"A comprehensive study."-- "American Ethnologist"

"The book is extraordinary in that it develops in a well-structured and flowing narrative a rich map across decades, institutions, and states, and suggests a framework for further study. . . . The balance that the book strikes in its coverage of complex and dense materials is impressive. It should be at the top of the reading list of any scholar working on Puerto Rican studies; with other recent contributions, it is the latest contribution of a wave of historically framed and researched studies that will reimagine our understanding of the Puerto Rican experience."

-- "CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies"

About the Author

Ismael García-Colón is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the College of Staten Island and CUNY Graduate Center. He is a historical and political anthropologist with interests in political economy and oral history, and the author of Land Reform in Puerto Rico: Modernizing the Colonial State.