Latinas/os in New Jersey

Histories, Communities, and Cultures

Edited by Aldo A. Lauria Santiago and Ulla D. Berg; Foreword by Olga Jiménez de Wagenheim; Preface by Olga Jiménez de Wagenheim

SERIES: CERES: Rutgers Studies in History

Rutgers University Press

Since the 1890s, New Jersey has attracted hundreds of thousands of Caribbean and Latin American migrants. The state’s rich economic history, high-income suburbs, and strong public sector have all contributed to attracting, retaining, and setting the stage for Latin American and Caribbean immigrants and secondary-step migrants from New York City. Since the 1980s, however, Latinos have developed a more complex presence in the state’s political landscape and institutions. The emergence of Latino-majority towns and cities and coalition politics facilitated the election of Latino mayors, council persons, and many social and community leaders, as well as the election of statewide officers. This collection brings together innovative and empirically grounded scholarship from different disciplines and interdisciplinary fields of study and addresses topics including the demographic history of Latinos in the state, Latino migration from gateway cities to suburban towns, Latino urban enclaves, Latino economic and social mobility, Latino students and education, the New Jersey Dream Act and in-state tuition act organizing, Latinos and criminal justice reform, Latino electoral politics and leadership, and undocumented communities.

Contributors: Yamil Avivi; Jennifer Ayala; Ulla D. Berg; Giovani Burgos; Elsa Candelario; Laura Curran; Lilia Fernández; Ismael García Colón; Olga Jiménez de Wagenheim; Benjamin Lapidus; Aldo A. Lauria Santiago; Johana Londoño; Kathleen Lopez; Giancarlo Muschi; Melanie Z. Plasencia; Ana Y. Ramos-Zayas; Elena Sabogal; Raymond Sanchez Mayers; William Suárez Gómez; Alex F. Trillo; Daniela Valdez; Anil Venkatesh; Lyna L. Wiggins

Reviews

An overdue, comprehensive book on New Jersey's Latinos. Covering ethnicities, subcultures, cities, and a range of current issues, the volume analyses this diverse group—one-fifth of the state's population—and its challenges, hopes, and contributions. Educators, students, and policy makers will benefit from this rich collection of histories and analyses. The future of the Garden State can be gleaned from the accounts in this wonderful volume. Andrés Torres, editor of Latinos in New England

The editors not only provide up-to-date research on the demographic profile and trends among Latinos in New Jersey but dare to venture further into the realms of the social sciences, history, education, and art and culture and to put them each in conversation with one another. No other source has ever engaged with Latinos in the Garden State as deeply or profoundly. Ramona Hernández, author of The Mobility of Workers under Advanced Capitalism: Dominican Migration to the United State

Editor

ALDO A. LAURIA SANTIAGO is a professor in the Departments of Latino and Caribbean Studies and History at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. He is the co-author of Rethinking the Struggle for Puerto Rican Rights. At Rutgers he directs the Center for Latin American Studies and co-coordinates the Latino Studies Research Initiative.

ULLA D. BERG is an associate professor in the Departments of Latino and Caribbean Studies and Anthropology at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. She is the author of Mobile Selves: Race, Migration and Belonging Between Peru and the US.

OLGA JIMENEZ de WAGENHEIM is a professor emerita in history at Rutgers University, Newark, where she taught and mentored for more than twenty years. She is the author of The Puerto Ricans: A Documentary History and Puerto Rico’s Revolt for Independence.

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