Mérida M. Rúa – författare

Chicago is home to the third-largest concentration of Puerto Ricans in the United States, but scholarship on the city rarely accounts for their presence. This book is part of an effort to include Puerto Ricans in Chicago's history. Rúa traces Puerto Ricans' construction of identity in a narrative that begins in 1945, when a small group of University of Puerto Rico graduates earned scholarships to attend the University of Chicago and a private employment agency recruited Puerto Rican domestics and foundry workers. They arrived from an island colony where they had held U.S. citizenship and where most thought of themselves as "white." But in Chicago, Puerto Ricans were considered "colored" and their citizenship was second class. They seemed to share few of the rights other Chicagoans took for granted. In her analysis of the following six decades--during which Chicago witnessed urban renewal, loss of neighborhoods, emergence of multiracial coalitions, waves of protest movements, and everyday commemorations of death and life--Rúa explores the ways in which Puerto Ricans have negotiated their identity as Puerto Ricans, Latinos, and U.S. citizens.Through a variety of sources, including oral history interviews, ethnographic observation, archival research, and textual criticism, A Grounded Identidad attempts to redress this oversight of traditional scholarship on Chicago by presenting not only Puerto Ricans' reconstitution from colonial subjects to second-class citizens, but also by examining the implications of this political reality on the ways in which Puerto Ricans have been racially imagined and positioned in comparison to blacks, whites, and Mexicans over time.

Chicago is the home to the third-largest concentration of Puerto Ricans in the United States, but scholarship on the city rarely accounts for Puerto Ricans. This book is part of a revisionary effort to include Puerto Ricans in the history of Chicago. Rúa explores the multiple meanings of latinidad (a shared sense of identity among people of Latin American and Caribbean descent) from a historical and ethnographic perspective by examining daily lives. She shows that Puerto Ricans in Chicago have continually constructed, restructured, and transformed place through discourses and experiences of rejection and belonging, despair and hope.Rúa traces Puerto Ricans' construction of identity in a narrative that begins in 1945, when a small group of University of Puerto Rico graduates earned scholarships to attend the University of Chicago as a private employment agency recruited Puerto Rican domestics and foundry workers. These people formed the foundation of Chicago's contemporary Puerto Rican community. In the following six decades, Chicago witnessed urban renewal, loss of neighborhoods, emergence of multiracial coalitions, waves of protest movements, and celebrations of life within which Puerto Ricans negotiated their identity, as Puerto Ricans, as Latinos, and as U.S. citizens.Puerto Ricans arriving in the U.S. had come from an island colony, but they had had the status of U.S. citizens, and most considered themselves, and were considered to be, "white." And yet, their brownness was considered "colored," and their citizenship was second class. They seemed to share few of the rights other Chicagoans took for granted. Memory and place and loss and identity seemed interconnected. Were those of Puerto Rican descent historical anomalies of the vestiges of empire? Or genuine American citizens? What is the link for Puerto Ricans, other than the Spanish language, to other Latinos, citizens as well as undocumented migrants and documented ones? Through a variety of sources, including oral history interviews, ethnographic observations, archival research, and textual criticism, A Grounded Identidad attempts to redress the oversight of traditional scholarship on Chicago by presenting the example of Puerto Ricans, their reconstruction from colonial subjects to second-class citizens, and the implications of this political reality on how they have been racially imagined and positioned vis-à-vis blacks, whites, and Mexicans over time.

**WINNER, D. Scott Palmer Prize for Best Edited Collection, given by the New England Council of Latin American Studies**Introduces new approaches, theoretical trends, and understudied topics in Latinx StudiesThis groundbreaking work offers a multidisciplinary, social-science oriented perspective on Latinx studies, including the social histories and contemporary lives of a diverse range of Latina and Latino populations. Editors Ana Y. Ramos-Zayas and Mérida M. Rúa have crafted an anthology that is unique in both form and content. The book combines previously published canonical pieces with original, cutting-edge works created for this volume. The sections of the text are arranged thematically as critical dialogues, each with a brief preface that provides context and a conceptual direction for the scholarly conversation that ensues. The editors frame the volume around the "humanistic social sciences," using the term to highlight the historical and social contexts under which expressive cultural forms and archival records are created.Critical Dialogues in Latinx Studies masterfully sheds light on the diversity and complexity of the everyday lives of Latinx populations, the political economic structures that shape enduring racialization and cultural stereotyping, and the continuing efforts to carve out new lives as diasporic, transnational, global, and colonial subjects.

**WINNER, D. Scott Palmer Prize for Best Edited Collection, given by the New England Council of Latin American Studies**Introduces new approaches, theoretical trends, and understudied topics in Latinx StudiesThis groundbreaking work offers a multidisciplinary, social-science oriented perspective on Latinx studies, including the social histories and contemporary lives of a diverse range of Latina and Latino populations. Editors Ana Y. Ramos-Zayas and Mérida M. Rúa have crafted an anthology that is unique in both form and content. The book combines previously published canonical pieces with original, cutting-edge works created for this volume. The sections of the text are arranged thematically as critical dialogues, each with a brief preface that provides context and a conceptual direction for the scholarly conversation that ensues. The editors frame the volume around the "humanistic social sciences," using the term to highlight the historical and social contexts under which expressive cultural forms and archival records are created.Critical Dialogues in Latinx Studies masterfully sheds light on the diversity and complexity of the everyday lives of Latinx populations, the political economic structures that shape enduring racialization and cultural stereotyping, and the continuing efforts to carve out new lives as diasporic, transnational, global, and colonial subjects.

It is widely recognized that Latinos are a sizable and diverse population and that we are a young demographic. The median age of non-Hispanic white Americans is 58, whereas for Latinos it is 30.Footnote1 Perhaps this partially explains the dearth of attention afforded to the topic of aging Latinos by academic scholarship and the mainstream media. This special issue compellingly alerts us to the reality that there is a growing, aging Latino population about which we know very little and that deserves our attention. I am grateful to Katynka Martínez and Mérida Rúa for curating “The Art of Latina and Latino Elderhood,” since this special issue responds to this significant gap in our knowledge with an exciting set of academic articles and creative contributions that challenges not only our assumptions about Latinos and aging but also our thinking on the types of contributions we include in our journal pages. Katynka and Mérida make the case that the story of Latino elderhood is best conveyed through a truly multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach, bringing together public policy, humanistic social sciences, and artistic interventions. So, for the first time, Latino Studies is pleased to feature a novel in progress, a photo essay/dialógo, an artist’s monologue, and a dialogue among actors alongside more traditional academic articles. I think you will agree that this issue before you beautifully conveys why the subject of Latinos and aging should concern all of us, and that it will powerfully spur other researchers and artists to take up the invitation to continue to share new evocative stories about the pleasures, difficulties, and complexities of Latinx later life.Previously published in Latino Studies Volume 19, issue 4, December 2021