National Performances

The Politics of Class, Race, and Space in Puerto Rican Chicago

Cloth $62.50 ISBN: 9780226703589 Published July 2003

Paper $27.50 ISBN: 9780226703596 Published July 2003

In this book, Ana Y. Ramos-Zayas explores how Puerto Ricans in Chicago construct and perform nationalism. Contrary to characterizations of nationalism as a primarily unifying force, Ramos-Zayas finds that it actually provides the vocabulary to highlight distinctions along class, gender, racial, and generational lines among Puerto Ricans, as well as between Puerto Ricans and other Latino, black, and white populations.

Drawing on extensive ethnographic research, Ramos-Zayas shows how the performance of Puerto Rican nationalism in Chicago serves as a critique of social inequality, colonialism, and imperialism, allowing barrio residents and others to challenge the notion that upward social mobility is equally available to all Americans—or all Puerto Ricans. Paradoxically, however, these activists' efforts also promote upward social mobility, overturning previous notions that resentment and marginalization are the main results of nationalist strategies.

Ramos-Zayas's groundbreaking work allows her here to offer one of the most original and complex analyses of contemporary nationalism and Latino identity in the United States.

ASA: ASA Latino/a Section
Won

View Recent Awards page for more award winning books.

“An insightful, well-documented ethnography of Puerto Ricans in Chicago.”—European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies

"Ramos-Zayas's book is a rich, detailed, and complex analysis of how Puerto Rican nationalism is performed in Chicago and in the context of US ideologies of nationhood and race. . . . A valuable contribution to the literature on ethnic nationalism in the USA."

Distinguished Contribution to Research (Best book written in the previous 3 years in the area of Latino/a Studies) by the Latino/a Section of the American Sociological Association

“Puerto Rican Chicago is virtually unknown to the social science audience. Yet in Ramos-Zayas’s lyrical hands, we discover a hotbed of flag-waving island nationalism in the Windy City. Ramos-Zayas shows us how a defiant diasporic nationalism spurs working class kids to devote themselves to academic achievement in alternative schools that embrace political opposition. She explores the ambivalence of professionals who have moved up and out of the barrio as they seek an alternative, pan-Latino identity. This book is a major contribution to anthropological understandings of politicized ethnicity, the complex relations between the island-born and the U.S. born as they are inscribed in the icons of political prisoners and revolutionary heroes.”<Katherine Newman, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University

“Ramos-Zayas presents a carefully constructed ethnographic and historical account of the Puerto Rican community in Chicago. National Performances provides excellent empirical documentation that usefully illustrates the ongoing pertinence of the Puerto Rican case to contemporary debates on cultural and political nationalism, belonging, and citizenship in the twenty-first century.”<Suzanne Oboler, University of Illinois, Chicago

“Ramos-Zayas has presented an up-close, richly detailed account of the processes that define a community. She has made contributions in two important areas of anthropology. First, her detailed ethnography provides information about an area of the Puerto Rican diaspora not previously documented. . . . Second, she emphasizes the construction of national identity as a discursive process, contingent, comparative and context sensitive.”—Bonnie Urciuoli, <I>Anthropological Quarterly

"National Performances makes important theoretical gestures and supports them with a densely textured yet cogently written ethnography. Many readers will be impressed by the richness and depth of Ramos-Zayas's insights on the ways that larger forces shape daily life in Puerto Rican Chicago."

Contents

Preface
Introduction
1- Performing the Nation: Perspectives on Puerto Rican Nationalism
2- Cold in the Windy City: Migration, Settlement, and Political Stories in Puerto Rican Chicago
3-Los nacionalistas: Popular Education, Community Activism, and Gender Ideologies
4-Los profesionales: Public Education, Class Identities, and the Mainstream Media
5-Cultural Authenticity: The Suburban Islanders, Historiography, and the Island-Nation
6-Creating Race: Pedro Albizu Campos, Representation, and Imagination
7-Creating Space: Barrio-Nation, Urban Landscapes, and Citizenship Identities
Conclusion
Notes
References
Index

For more information, or to order this book, please visit http://www.press.uchicago.edu

Anthropology: Cultural and Social Anthropology | General Anthropology

Gender and Sexuality

Geography: Cultural and Historical Geography | Urban Geography

History: Latin American History

Latin American Studies

Sociology: Race, Ethnic, and Minority Relations | Social Change, Social Movements, Political Sociology | Urban and Rural Sociology

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