We Are Left without a Father Here: Masculinity, Domesticity, and Migration in Postwar Puerto Rico

We Are Left without a Father Here is a transnational history of working people's struggles and a gendered analysis of populism and colonialism in mid-twentieth-century Puerto Rico. At its core are the thousands of agricultural workers who, at the behest of the Puerto Rican government, migrated to Michigan in 1950 to work in the state's sugar beet fields. The men expected to earn enough income to finally become successful breadwinners and fathers. To their dismay, the men encountered abysmal working conditions and pay. The migrant workers in Michigan and their wives in Puerto Rico soon exploded in protest. Chronicling the protests, the surprising alliances that they created, and the Puerto Rican government's response, Eileen J. Su rez Findlay explains that notions of fatherhood and domesticity were central to Puerto Rican populist politics. Patriarchal ideals shaped citizens' understandings of themselves, their relationship to Puerto Rican leaders and the state, as well as the meanings they ascribed to U.S. colonialism. Findlay argues that the motivations and strategies for transnational labor migrations, colonial policies, and worker solidarities are all deeply gendered.


Author: Eileen J. Suárez Findlay
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 12/26/2014
Pages: 312
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9780822357827

Review Citation(s):
Choice 06/01/2015

About the Author
Eileen J. Suárez Findlay is Associate Professor of Latin American and Caribbean History at American University. She is the author of Imposing Decency: The Politics of Sexuality and Race in Puerto Rico, 1870-1920, also published by Duke University Press.