We worked with partners at the Hoboken Historical Museum, Library of Congress and the Puerto Rican Cultural Committee. Oral historian Christopher Lopez contributed family and oral histories.
Stories and materials can be found in Collections and Exhibits. We are always looking for more. If you have any, please contibute by clicking "Contribute an Item" at the top of the page. If we've made any errors, it is unintentional, and you can correct us by selecting "Contact Us" at the top of the page. We have more information that we'll be adding over the coming months, so be sure to check back often.
If you have information about the salsa scene in Hoboken, please get in touch with us.
The majority of the material we've collected and present here is in English. Hopefully in the future we can translate it into Spanish.
Note: we use the term Puerto Rican to describe people of Puerto Rican extraction or heritage of any generation. Throughout the text there are references to Hispanics and Latinos, these are terms used by, for instance, the United States Census and reporters as a catchall for Spanish speaking invididuals from a number of different Central and South American countries and the islands of the Antilles, including Puerto Rico. There is derogatory language in some accounts of the 1940s-1980s, we are presenting those unaltered because of their historic value, not because we agree with their opinions or intent.
Additionally, we would be remiss if we did not note that Puerto Rico was the traditional homeland of the Taino, the pre-Spanish (and European and African), indigenous Native American population that inhabited the island prior to the arrival of Columbus. The Taino fall outside the scope of this project, but you can learn more about them by clicking here. There is also a Story Map produced by the Library of Congress that addresses the language of the island and the impact of Taino culture. The Story Map can be found here. The text, A Contested Caribbean Indigeniety, by Sherina Feliciano-Santos discusses the legacy of Taino/Boricua identity in current cultural contexts in greater depth.
"The Puerto Rican Experience in Hoboken and
America” project has been made possible in part by funding from the Library of Congress.
For more information and resources about Puerto Rico, from the Library of Congress, please click here.
Thank you to Jorge Duany for corresponding with me when I had questions about his work, The Puerto Rican Nation on The Move. Also, thank you to Marisol Negron for answering a question I had about her, at the time forthcoming, book Made in NuYoRico: Fania Records, Latin Music and Salsa’s Nuyorican Meanings.
Extra special thanks to Bob Foster and Holly Metz at the Hoboken Historical Museum for use of their chapbooks and artist/curator/oral historian Christopher Lopez for his excellent research. Thank you to Raul Morales, Sr. and Raul Morales, Jr. for entrusting us with materials from the Puerto Rico Cultural Committee. Thank you to Juber Ayala for his help with materials from the Myrna Milan collection. Thank you to Congressman Rob Menendez.
Extra, extra thanks to Ramona Diaz, Deliz Gonzalez, Myrna Milan, Juan Pizzaro, Angel Rivera, Sylvia Rivera, Carmen Sanchez and Carmen Vega for offering us their time and insights.
