Through a focus on liberal academic and policy networks, this article considers how ideas and practices central to an educational "war on poverty" grew through connections between postwar Puerto Rico, Latin America, and New York. In particular, it analyzes how social scientific ideas about education's role in economic development found…

Carmen Montañez's novel "Pelo bueno, pelo malo" acknowledges the struggle that some Caribbean individuals face in accepting their blackness. The novel integrates the union of ancestors with the living, thus reflecting the Bantu concept known as "Muntu". This Puerto Rican novel presents a deep social problem of internalized…

Historically, black women's hair has been a site where power and social relations are defined. In Puerto Rico, cultural production has been critical in perpetuating as well as in contesting the prevailing white European ideal of beauty and its impact on women's hairstyling practices. Nevertheless, the link between aesthetic preferences and the…

This article focuses on the complex web of issues involved in Esmeralda Santiago's acculturation to US society after arriving from Puerto Rico as a girl. The article is based on examples from Santiago's second memoir, "Almost a Woman" (1998) and the 2001 film adaptation of this memoir; the observations of critics who have written about…