Scan barcode
A review by jone_d
Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America by Juan González
4.0
This book feels very dated. (It came out before 9/11, before the giant immigrant rights mobilizations in in '06.) But I still found it really informative. A couple of highlights: I really liked the way Gonzalez, maybe because of his journalist background, choose the story of a family from each group of Latino immigrants he wrote a chapter about to build that chapter around. In my classroom I have a child who was born in the Dominican Republic, another who was born in El Salvador, and a child who was born in Puerto Rico; I really appreciated that Gonzalez took the time and space to layout the different specifics about the relationships of these these place and the US and the different contexts into which folks from these places immigrated/migrated. Although it was short I really found the section on language and 'cultural integration,' which included information about German immigration to the US, interesting and informative. And of course the whole premise of the book: that US intervention/empire building in Latin America shapes Latino immigration to America is not just a logical but also a powerful analysis.
One thing I found disappointing was how "apolitical" the book was, or maybe more correctly how absent the language of anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism was from an author who was part of the Young Lords. But it is not hard to draw ones own political conclusions from this book.
One thing I found disappointing was how "apolitical" the book was, or maybe more correctly how absent the language of anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism was from an author who was part of the Young Lords. But it is not hard to draw ones own political conclusions from this book.