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Solidarity and empowerment in Chicago’s Puerto Rican print culture

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Abstract

This article chronicles the literary and historical importance of three print materials, to contextualize the importance of a Chicago-based Puerto Rican print culture that in many ways highlighted the social, racial, and class differences of this community, and led to the establishment of Latina/o Studies in the Midwest. The Rican: A Journal of Contemporary Puerto Rican Thought, El Puertorriqueño, as well as the newspapers of the Young Lords Organization (which went by various names during its tenure), provided venues for academic scholars to articulate their own research agendas, and also created spaces to examine and include the voices of the growing Puerto Rican diaspora, while tracing the intricate history of Puerto Ricans in the city.

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Notes

  1. For more on the history of community development and struggle for Puerto Ricans in Chicago, see Ramos-Zayas (2003), Padilla (1985), and Rúa (2012).

  2. See Felix Padilla’s Puerto Rican Chicago (1988) and Gina M. Pérez’s Near Northwest Side Story (2004).

  3. Why a YLO Newspaper? (1969). Unless stated otherwise, all of the Young Lords Organization newspapers and publications discussed here can be accessed via DePaul University’s online digital archives collection at: http://eres.lib.depaul.edu/eres/coursepage.aspx?cid=4075&page=docs. Issues of the newspapers did not always contain precise dates.

  4. The Liberation News Service, or LNS, served as an alternative to mainstream news agencies, such as the Associated Press, providing news of the counter-culture from the 1960s until the early 1980s. For more on the LNS and other underground press, see James Lewes, “The Underground Press in America (1964–1968): Outlining an Alternative, the Envisioning of an Underground,” Journal of Communication Inquiry 24 (2000): 379-400.

  5. See Felix Padilla, Latino Ethnic Consciousness and Lilia Fernández, Brown in the Windy City: Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Postwar Chicago (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012).

  6. Texas Pigs Attack Chicano Family: Critically Wound Father, Mother and Daughter” (1971), El Young Lord Latin Liberation News Service, 3. The police officers entered the house of the Limön family in Dallas, Texas, wounding the three family members. The two offenders, who the police intended to arrest, lived over 50 feet away in a neighboring unit.

  7. “Mousee” is the nickname of the person who wrote the letter in the newspaper.

  8. Letter from José Jiménez, General Secretary of Chicago’s Young Lords Organization, to “All Press Contacts.” 1 April 1974, folder 3, box 2, Young Lords Collection, DePaul University Special Collections.

  9. In the 8 January 1970 article, “Falta Calor en Muchos Hogares de Chicago,” the newspaper reminded residents of the resources available: “Let me remind you again that the personnel of the Center of Urban Progress is here with only the purpose of helping the community” (my translation).

  10. José E. López went on to attend both Loyola University and the University of Chicago. Mr. López became a prominent leader in the Puerto Rican community in Chicago as both the Executive Director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center of Chicago, and a frequent lecturer on Puerto Rican history at local institutions of higher education.

  11. Aspira Incorporated, established in New York by Dr. Antonia Pantoja was an educational organization seeking to remedy the schooling inequalities and lack of resources available to primarily Puerto Rican students. In the late 1960s, Mirta Ramírez headed the Chicago branch of the organization.

  12. For the purpose of this project, I reviewed six issues of the journal. The journal itself published approximately eight issues (1971–1974), although monetary restraints did not allow for the distribution of all issues.

  13. My interview with Samuel Betances took place on 25 September 2009, Chicago, Illinois.

  14. Blurb found on the back cover of the May 1974 issue of The Rican, credited to Brother Pablo #30818, Pontiac, Illinois.

  15. Edna Acosta-Belén and Frank Bonilla both went on to become distinguished scholars in the field of Puerto Rican Studies, with Bonilla serving as a the long-standing director of the Center for Puerto Rican studies at City University of New York. Isidro Lucas became a leading researcher and advocate on issues of higher education for Puerto Ricans and other Latinos.

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Acknowledgements

I thank Richard T. Limön, Arlene Torres, Lilia Fernández, and Laurence Parker for feedback on earlier drafts of this article. I also thank fellow panelists and attendees for their comments on an earlier version presented at the Puerto Rican Studies Association conference in Albany, New York in October 2012.

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Velazquez, M. Solidarity and empowerment in Chicago’s Puerto Rican print culture. Lat Stud 12, 88–110 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1057/lst.2014.3

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