The band Cortijo is contextualized within the socioeconomic changes in Puerto Rico from the late 1940s to the early 1960s as it adjusted to its new status as a commonwealth. Cortijo documents the realities of Puerto Rico's rapid urbanization and modernization at the time. The band's gritty reflections of a black, working class, urban, and marginalized population contradict the official rhetoric and imagery of an idealized rural landscape promoted by the government as the symbol of the commonwealth. Cortijo enjoyed immense popularity and visibility, despite, or perhaps because of, its critique of the euphoria of modernization and its questioning of the sociopolitical effects of internal migration that ran counter to the official stance.
Baralt,Guillermo A. (Author) and Christine Ayorinde (Translator)
Format:
Book, Whole
Publication Date:
2007
Published:
Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
180 p, "From the emergence of the first sugar plantations up until 1873, when slavery was abolished, the wealth amassed by many landowners in Puerto Rico derived mainly from the exploitation of slaves. But slavery generated its antithesis - disobedience, uprisings and flights. This book documents these expressions of collective resistance" (publisher)
Haslip-Viera,Gabriel (Author) and Dávila,Arlene M. (Author)
Format:
Monograph
Publication Date:
2001
Published:
Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
162 p, "Examines the Ta¡no revival movement, a grassroots conglomeration of Puerto Ricans and other Latinos who promote or have adopted the culture & pedigree of the pre-Columbian Ta¡no Indian population of Puerto Rico and the western Caribbean." (Amazon)
