In this new book of the same title, Edgardo Meléndez presents the first comprehensive study of the “Puerto Rican problem” in postwar New York City—a notion that began with the arrival of migrants from the US colony in 1945 and developed over the next fifteen years into an intense campaign for policies by the government of Puerto Rico (granted commonwealth status in 1952) and New York to ease their settlement into the city and other regions of the United States. The “problem” served as a foundation for academic concepts like the “culture of poverty,” later embedded into the JFK-LBJ administration’s War on Poverty. It also functioned as the inspiration for icons of American popular culture like Arthur Laurents’s West Side Story, which popularized many of the stereotypes of the day, shaping the way Puerto Ricans were studied and understood for generations. Here, Meléndez, a retired professor of CUNY’s Hunter College and the University of Puerto Rico, explores its roots, development, and consequences.

Virginia E. Sánchez Korrol, author of From Colonia to Community: The History of Puerto Ricans in New York City, joins in conversation with the author.