Boricua Power

José Ramón Sánchez is Associate Professor of Political Science and Chair of Urban Studies at Long Island University, Brooklyn. He is also the Chair of the National Institute for Latino Policy.

"The strength of this book resides in the rich details about local politics revealed in these chapters." (Political Science Quarterly) "A well-written, historically informed, and original treatment of the Puerto Rican cultural and ethno-class struggle in America. Boricua Power is scholarly yet heartfelt and recommended to anyone interested in ethnicity and social power." - Michael Parenti, author of The Culture Struggle "José Sánchez offers a fresh new way of thinking about Puerto Rican politics. Guided by a dynamic and suggestive concept of political power, the author navigates his way deftly through the thickets of volatile debates and controversy in tracking a century-long history of radical class and ethnic speaking-truth-to-power in the Latino vein. Taking us back to the cigar worker strikes before the 1920s, the story of Boricua Power goes on to probe the political scene in the post-World War II era, and then sheds new light on the Young Lords' Party and the exciting political watershed of the sixties and seventies in New York City. To sidestep the pitfalls of blame-the-victim pathologizing on the one hand, and wishful triumphalism on the other, Sánchezs metaphor of the play of power as dance is fun, convincing, and thoroughly apropos." - Juan Flores,author of From Bomba to Hip-Hop: Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity "This study fills an important gap by presenting a cogent and historically rich account of community empowerment in the intellectual tradition of political economy." (Citylimits.org)

• Acknowledgments Introduction 1 Dance: A Theory of Power 2 The Cigar Makers' Strike: An Economic Power Goes Up in Smoke, 1919 to 1945 3 The Rise of Radicalism: World War II to 1965 4 Puerto Rican Marginalization: 1965 to the Present 5 The Young Lords, the Media, and CulturalEstrangement ConclusionNotes BibliographyIndex About the Author