Podcast Interview: Patria: Puerto Rican Revolutionaries in Nineteenth Century New York
Edgardo Meléndez Interviewed by Jesse Hoffnung-Garskoff
Edgardo Meléndez's book Patria: Puerto Rican Revolutionaries in Nineteenth Century New York (Centro Press, 2019) examines the activities and ideals of Puerto Rican revolutionary exiles in New York City at the end of the nineteenth century. The study is centered in the writings, news reports, and announcements by and about Puerto Ricans in Patria, the official newspaper of the Cuban Revolutionary Party. Both were founded and led by the Cuban patriot José Martí.
Mexican (In)Visibility: Melissa Castillo Planas's Journey Into New York's Mexican State of Mind
Reviewed by Nelson Santana
When one thinks about Mexican migrants, often what comes to mind, partly due to conservative narratives, are Mexican-descended people in the US-Mexico border states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. However, the Mexican community — some whose ancestors lived on Mexican land prior to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) and who suddenly went from living in Mexico to living in the United States on the same land[1] — is dispersed throughout the United States with significant populations in Illinois, Washington, DC, and New York. The Mexican population in New York City is one that has been booming for quite some time.
The Chinese Lady: An Interview with Nancy E. Davis
Interviewed by Hongdeng Gao
Today on the blog, editor Hongdeng Gao speaks to Nancy E. Davis about her recent book, The Chinese Lady: Afong Moy in Early America. Through creative use of disparate sources from many years of research, Davis captures the experiences of Afong Moy — the first recognized Chinese woman to arrive in America — as she introduced exotic goods from the East, as well as Chinese life, to the American public. The book provides rich insights into how Afong Moy’s presence changed Americans’ views of China and influenced American popular and material culture. It also sheds light on New York City’s role in the early US-China trade and the rise of the global marketplace.
Though post-COVID statistics will reflect restaurant closures, downsizing, or “ghost kitchens,” as of the summer of 2020 there were 27,556 restaurants operating in New York City, 977 of which were Mexican. To some, this latter number might not be surprising (and even seem low given the popularity of Mexican cuisine). Yet just a few decades ago, New York was a place where Mexican food was hard to find. It lagged behind other cities like Chicago, San Antonio, or Los Angeles that claimed larger Mexican-origin populations and a longer history of Mexican restaurants.
“Working-Class New York Revisited” Conference Honors Joshua Freeman
By Marc Kagan
“I do hope that this book illuminates the possibilities for ordinary people to play a greater role in shaping their city and nation than they do today.” Joshua Freeman, Working-Class New York, 2000. New York City’s working-class had real political, economic, and social power for almost thirty years after World War II. That power, expressed primarily through private- and, increasingly, public-sector unions, made life substantially better not just for their own members, but millions of other working-class New Yorkers.
In Radical Imagination, Radical Humanity: Puerto Rican Political Activism in New York, Rose Muzio analyzes how structural and historical factors — including colonialism, economic marginalization, racial discrimination, and the Black and Brown Power movements of the 1960s — influenced young Puerto Ricans to reject mainstream ideas about political incorporation and join others in struggles against perceived injustices. This analysis provides the first in-depth account of the origins, evolution, achievements, and failures of El Comité-Movimiento de Izquierda Nacional Puertorriqueño, one of the main organizations of the Puerto Rican Left in the 1970s in New York City.
The First Cinemas in Black Harlem: A Look at the Silent Film Era, 1909-1926
By Agata Frymus
The history of cinemas in Harlem is as old — or, in fact a few years older — than its history as a lively center of Black life. Movie houses that opened their doors to African Americans in the late 1900s and early 1910s offer a fascinating insight into the history of Harlem’s residents.
Review: Malgorzata Szejnert's Ellis Island: A People’s History
Reviewed by Sarah Litvin
Ellis Island: A People’s History, by Polish journalist Malgorzata Szejnert, tells an undulating history of the island through a chronological series of character studies and vignettes. Five sections, aptly entitled “Rising Tide,” “Flood,” “Becalmed,” “Pitch and Toss,” and “Ebb Tide” chart the rise and fall of New York’s famous immigration station that processed more than twelve million people between 1892, when it opened, and 1954, when it closed. Immigration through Ellis Island peaked in 1907, when 3,818 ships delivered more than 1.2 million people, a flood that calmed at the outbreak of WWI, and ebbed as deportations increased during the Red Scare and immigration was restricted by quotas created by the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924.
“Young people are making their voices heard”: From Harlem’s Youth Movement in the 1930s and 1940s to DSA-NYC
By Mary Reynolds
The ongoing press scrum over New York’s 2021 mayoral election has obscured the down-ticket candidates in the June 22 primary races for the City’s fifty-one Council seats. These contests could be better bellwethers for the city’s future, and recall a little-known era of the city’s radical past.
Contiguous Cloth: Textiles and the Slave Trade in New Netherland
By Carrie Anderson
Sometime in the fall of 1661 the Nieuw Nederlantse Indiaen docked in the harbor of New Amsterdam carrying documents and cargo from Curaçao, the Dutch colony that served as a central hub of the slave trade for both Dutch and Spanish colonies in the Americas. The skipper of the ship, Dirck Jansz van Oldenburg, carried with him a list of documents that were to be delivered to Pieter Stuyvesant (1612-1672), the director-general of New Netherland between 1647 and 1664.
