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New Currents in Puerto Rican History: Legacy, Continuity, and Challenges of the “Nueva Historia”

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TRADICION DE FUTURO: EL PRIMER SIGLO DEL BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO (1893-1993). By BaraltGuillermo A. (San Juan: Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, 1993. Pp. 372. $45.00 cloth, $35.00 paper.)
CONTRA LA CORRIENTE: SEIS MICROBIOGRAFIAS DE LOS TIEMPOS DE ESPAÑA. By PicóFernando. (Río Piedras: Huracán, 1995. Pp. 189. $11.95 paper.)
EL DIA MENOS PENSADO: HISTORIA DE LOS PRESIDIARIOS EN PUERTO RICO (1793-1993). By PicóFernando. (Río Piedras: Huracán, 1994. Pp. 198. $11.95 paper.)

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Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2022

Félix V. Matos Rodríguez
Félix V. Matos Rodríguez*
Affiliation:
Northeastern University
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Abstract

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Type
Review Essays
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , 1997 , pp. 193 - 208
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

∗

The author wishes to thank Liliana Arabía, Emilio Kourí, Juan J. Baldrich, Pedro San Miguel, Jorge Duany, and the anonymous LARR reviewers for their constructive suggestions.

References

Notes

1. For critiques of the “new history,” see James Dietz, “Puerto Rico's New History,” LARR 19, no. 1 (1984):210-22; Mariano Negrón Portillo and Raúl Mayo Santana, “Trabajo, producción y conflictos en el siglo XIX: Una revisión crítica de las nuevas investigaciones históricas en Puerto Rico,” Revista de Ciencias Sociales 24, nos. 3–4 (1985):469-96; María de los Angeles Castro, “De Salvador Brau hasta la ‘novísima’ historia: Un replanteamiento y una crítica,” Op. Cit. 4 (1988-1989):9–56 (published in Río Piedras); Gervasio L. García, Historia crítica, historia sin coartadas: Algunos problemas de la historia de Puerto Rico (Río Piedras: Huracán, 1983); Arcadio Díaz-Quiñones, La memoria rota (Río Piedras: Huracán, 1993); and Arturo Torrecilla, El aspectro posmoderno: Ecología, neoproletariado, intelligentsia (San Juan: Publicaciones Puertorriqueñas, 1995), 83–138.

2. Castro, “De Salvador Brau,” 22–32.

3. See Torrecilla, El aspectro posmoderno, 149–217. For a comparative perspective on how postmodernism has affected historical writing in the United States, see Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob, Telling the Truth about History (New York: Norton, 1994), 198–309.

4. See for example Carlos Pabón, “El lenguaje de la diferencia y la nación imaginada,” Op. Cit. 8 (1994):7-10; Silvia Alvarez Curbelo, “Coartadas para la agresión: Emigración, guerra y populismo,” in Polifonía salvaje: Ensayos de cultura y política en la postmodernidad, edited by Irma Rivera Nieves and Carlos Gil (San Juan: Postdata, 1995), 91–107; and Gladys Jiménez, “‘Xiomara mi hermana’: Diplo y el travestismo racial en Puerto Rico de los años 50,” Bordes 2 (1995):15–27.

5. Examples of this scholarship include Luis M. Díaz Soler, Puerto Rico desde sus orígenes hasta el cese de la dominación española (Río Piedras: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, 1994); Irene Fernández Aponte, El cambio de soberanía en Puerto Rico (Madrid: Mapfre, 1992); Gonzalo F. Córdova, Luis Sánchez Morales, servidor ejemplar (San Juan: Editorial Académica para la Obra de José Celso Barboas y Alcalá, 1991); and Gonzalo F. Córdova, Resident Commissioner Santiago Iglesias and His Times (Río Piedras: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, 1993).

6. See Picó, Libertad y servidumbre en el Puerto Rico del siglo XIX (Río Piedras: Huracán, 1979); and Amargo café: Los pequeños y medianos caficultores de Utuado en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX (Río Piedras: Huracán, 1981).

7. See Las vallas rotas (Río Piedras: Huracán, 1982), which Picó coauthored with Milton Pabón and Roberto Alejandro; Historia general de Puerto Rico (Río Piedras: Huracán, 1986); Vivir en Caimito (Río Piedras: Huracán, 1988); and 1898: La guerra después de la guerra (Río Piedras: Huracán, 1987).

8. One of Picó‘s latest collections of essays is appropriately titled “On the Fringes of Power.” See Al filo del poder: Subalternos y dominantes en Puerto Rico, 1739–1910 (Río Piedras: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, 1993). The book's introduction provides a brief but valuable chronological account of Picó‘s research interests and publications. It also mentions his interest in French historical methodology.

9. Picó‘s work has often been criticized for its lack of theoretical perspective. For one critique, see Negrón Portillo and Mayo Santana, “Trabajo, producción y conflictos,” 485–87. But see Picó‘s thoughtful comments as a participant in the panel “La novela y la historia en el Caribe,” Cupey 7 (1990):79–104.

10. On Picó‘s recurring interest in marginalized groups’ alternate notions of time and order, see Libertad y servidumbre, 107–21, and Vivir en Caimito, 21–23.

11. The careers of some scholars associated with the nueva historia show a trend toward exploring new and alternate means of disseminating information. Picó has contributed frequently to the editorial pages of several local newspapers. He also published a readable and insightful general history of Puerto Rico for high school and college students, Historia general de Puerto Rico. Francisco Scarano has also written an excellent general history aimed at the same student audience entitled Puerto Rico: Cinco siglos de historia (Santafé de Bogotá: McGraw-Hill, 1993). Guillermo Baralt has moved away from university-centered institutes and has become the institutional historian for private entities like the Fideicomiso de Conservación de Puerto Rico and the Banco Popular. Two books have resulted from these efforts, La Buena Vista, 1833–1904 (San Juan: Fideicomiso de Conservación de Puerto Rico, 1988); and Tradición de futuro. Angel Quintero Rivera, although not a historian by training, has tried to make his research into labor history more accessible to a wider audience. See his joint photographic effort with Lydia Milagros González, La otra cara de la historia: La historia de Puerto Rico desde su cara obrera, vol. 1, 1800–1925 (Río Piedras: Centro de Estudios de la Realidad Puertorriqueña, 1984).

12. For a general discussion of Governor de la Torre's rule, see Picó, Historia general de Puerto Rico, 167–74.

13. See for example Ivonne Acosta, La mordaza: Puerto Rico, 1948–1957 (Río Piedras: Edil, 1987); and Marie A. Merrill Ramírez, “The Other Side of Colonialism: Cointelpro Activities in Puerto Rico in the 1960s,” Ph.D. diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1990.

14. Esclavos rebeldes: Conspiraciones y sublevaciones de esclavos en Puerto Rico (1795-1873) (Río Piedras: Huracán, 1981).

15. Rafael Carrión Pacheco's economic power and influence extended beyond Puerto Rico. He was a leading stockholder of the Continental Bank and Trust Company through the 1940s. He was named to its board of directors in 1945 and continued in that capacity even after Continental merged with Chemical Bank in 1948. See Baralt, Tradición de futuro, 110–11, 160.

16. Baralt has woven significant biographical material on business leaders into his most recent publications. For example, see his comments on Salvador de Vives in La Buena Vista, 1833–1904 (San Juan: Fideicomiso de Conservación de Puerto Rico, 1988). The few examples of recent full-scale or thematic biographies include Andrés Ramos Mattei, Betances en el ciclo revolucionario antillano, 1867–1875 (San Juan: Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, 1987); Luis Angel Ferrao, Pedro Albizu Campos y el nationalismo puertorriqueño (Río Piedras: Editorial Cultural, 1990); and the biographies by Gonzalo Córdova previously cited. It is curious that memoirs, a genre close to biography, have surged in recent decades, including those written by Emilio Díaz Valcarcel, Nilita Vientos Gastón, José Luis González, Sor Isolina Ferré, Carmen Luisa Justiniano, Rosario Ferré, and Esmeralda Santiago.

17. See Virginia E. Sánchez Korrol, From Colonia to Community: The History of Puerto Ricans in New York City, rev. ed. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994; originally published in 1983). The most important source of information on the early-twentieth-century Puerto Rican community in New York City remains Memoirs of Bernardo Vega: A Contribution to the History of the Puerto Rican Community in New York, edited by César Andreu Iglesias (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1984).

18. An example of current work on the social aspects of militarization is Jorge Rodríguez Beruff, Política militar y dominación: Puerto Rico en su contexto latinoamericano (Río Piedras: Huracán, 1988).

19. For an excellent review of the historiography on immigrants in Puerto Rico, see María Dolores Luque de Sánchez, “Aportaciones y apropiaciones extranjeras: Los inmigrantes en las historiografía puertorriqueña,” Op. Cit. 4 (1988-1989):57–80.

20. Arcadio Díaz-Quiñones has commented on how the study of the Puerto Rican diaspora was neglected by the new historians. See La memoria rota, 46–51.

21. Other important institutions in the development of the nueva historia were journals such as La Escalera and Sin Nombre and the publishing house Ediciones Huracán, directed by Carmen Rivera Izcoa.