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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
“9/11 And The Collapse Of The American Dream: Imbolo Mbue’S Behold The Dreamers”, Elizabeth Toohey
“9/11 And The Collapse Of The American Dream: Imbolo Mbue’S Behold The Dreamers”, Elizabeth Toohey
Publications and Research
Behold the Dreamers follows a Cameroonian couple who, as newcomers to America, harbor dreams of success unavailable to them back home. Undocumented immigration, the widening gulf between rich and poor, and the thinly veiled racism of an avowedly "post-racial" culture converge in this new generation of immigrants' painful encounter with the American dream. I consider the ways Mbue's novel shares themes with a "second wave" of post- 9/11 literature—first, in centering the disillusionment of a protagonist aspiring to the American dream; next, in its representation of New York as a space haunted by 9/11, but also of resistance to the …
Confronting The Present: Migration In Sidney Mintz’S Journal For The People Of Puerto Rico, Ismael Garcia-Colon
Confronting The Present: Migration In Sidney Mintz’S Journal For The People Of Puerto Rico, Ismael Garcia-Colon
Publications and Research
Sidney Mintz’s field journal for The People of Puerto Rico, published in 1956, is a valuable source for historical anthropological work. Until now, however, it has remained a hidden treasure for the anthropology of migration. By the late 1940s and 1950s, migration was central to the lives of Puerto Rican sugarcane workers and their families, and Mintz recorded important details of it. His journal shows how people maneuvered within fields of power that were full of opportunities and constraints for people seeking to make a living by migrating. Thanks to Mintz, anthropologists can learn about working-class Puerto Ricans’ experiences, lives, …
Claiming Equality: Puerto Rican Farmworkers In Western New York, Ismael Garcia-Colon
Claiming Equality: Puerto Rican Farmworkers In Western New York, Ismael Garcia-Colon
Publications and Research
n July of 1966, a group of Puerto Rican migrant workers protested against police brutality and discrimination in North Collins, a small farm community of western NewYork. Puerto Rican farmworkers made up a substantial part of the population, and had transformed the ethnic, racial, and gender landscape of the town. Local officials and residents produced and reproduced images of Puerto Ricans as inferior subjects within US racial and ethnic hierarchies. Those negative images of Puerto Ricans shaped the way in which local authorities elaborated policies of social control against these farmworkers in North Collins. At the same time, Puerto Rican …