Racial Migrations: New York City and the Revolutionary Politics of the Spanish Caribbean

Racial Migrations: New York City and the Revolutionary Politics of the Spanish Caribbean
By Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof
Princeton University Press
408 pages

Today on Gotham, Tyesha Maddox, Assistant Professor of African and African-American Studies at Fordham University, speaks with Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof, Associate Professor of History and American Culture at the University of Michigan, about his new book, Racial Migrations: New York City and the Revolutionary Politics of the Spanish Carribbean.

In the late nineteenth century, a small group of Cubans and Puerto Ricans of African descent settled in the segregated tenements of New York City. At an immigrant educational society in Greenwich Village, these early Afro-Latino New Yorkers taught themselves to be poets, journalists, and revolutionaries. Here, in this new work, we get a vivid portrait of these largely forgotten figures, weaving together their experiences of migrating while black, their relationships with African American civil rights leaders, and their evolving participation in nationalist political movements. By placing Afro-Latino New Yorkers at the center of the story, Hoffnung-Garskof offers a new interpretation of the revolutionary politics of the Spanish Caribbean, including the idea that Cuba could become a nation without racial divisions.