By the end of the 1920s, just ten years after the Jones Act first made them full-fledged Americans, more than 45,000 native Puerto Ricans had left their homes and entered the United States, citizenship papers in hand, forming one of New York City's most complex and distinctive migrant communities. In Puerto Rican Citizen, Lorrin Thomas for the first time unravels the many tensions - historical, racial, political, and economic - that defined the experience of this group of American citizens before and after World War II. Building its incisive narrative from a wide range of archival sources, interviews, and first-person accounts of Puerto Rican life in New York, this book illuminates the rich history of a group that is still largely invisible to many scholars and transforms the way we understand this community's integral role in shaping our sense of citizenship in twentieth-century America.

About the Author
Lorrin Thomas is associate professor of history at Rutgers University, Camden.

Reviews
"In this insightful, well-written study of Puerto Rican New York City, Thomas provides perhaps the best study of Puerto Rican political mobilization, migration, and politics in the post-WWII United States to date." (Choice)"



Book Information
ISBN 9780226151762
Author Lorrin Thomas
Format Paperback
Page Count 368
Imprint University of Chicago Press
Publisher The University of Chicago Press
Weight(grams) 567g
Dimensions(mm) 23mm * 15mm * 2mm