From Bomba to Hip-Hop: Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity [Paperback]

Juan Flores (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0231110774 | ISBN-13: 978-0231110778 | Publication Date: May 15, 2000 | Edition: Copyright 2000

Neither immigrants nor ethnics, neither foreign nor "hyphenated Americans" in the usual sense of that term, Puerto Ricans in New York have created a distinct identity both on the island of Puerto Rico and in the cultural landscape of the United States. Juan Flores considers the uniqueness of Puerto Rican culture and identity in relation to that of other Latino groups in the United States -- as well as to other minority groups, especially African Americans. Architecture and urban space, literary traditions, musical styles, and cultural movements provide some of the sites and moments of a cultural world defined by the interplay of continuity and transformation, heritage and innovation, roots and fusion. Exploring this wide range of cultural expression -- both in the diaspora and in Puerto Rico -- Flores highlights the rich complexities and fertile contradictions of Latino identity.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Flores (black and Puerto Rican studies, Hunter Coll.; sociology, CUNY Graduate Ctr.) has written widely on Latino and Puerto Rican culture. In this new book, he focuses on the progression of Puerto Rican culture in the United States over the past half-century. He analyzes developments in music, literature, and other elements of popular culture and compares Puerto Rican culture to that of other Latino groups in the United States. He follows some interesting trends, such as the building of casitas, shacks modeled after the traditional rural homes in Puerto Rico, as cultural centers in urban U.S. settings. Flores also discusses aspects of Puerto Rican musical influence, including the Latin Boogaloo craze of 1966-68. He celebrates Puerto Rican cultural accomplishments while encouraging further achievement. While academic in format and tone, Flores's writing is accessible to the interested lay reader. For academic libraries or public libraries with a special interest in the subject.DGwen M. Gregory, New Mexico State Univ., Las Cruces
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

In his eloquent essay collection... Flores has compiled a decade of research and meditations on 'America's fastest-growing minority,' Latinos.

(Suzy Hansen New York Times Book Review )

Well written and informative. Anyone wanting insight into Puerto Rican history and culture will find it enlightening. The book also offers solid supplemental reading for graduate or advanced undergraduate students in music history, Puerto Rican history, cultural studies, and sociology classes.

(Hispanic Outlook )

Flores's invaluable book establishes a new parameter for the field of Latino/a studies. Poignant and full of moving accounts, this volume does an inestimable service to both scholars and general readers.

(Choice )

The latest work by Juan Flores, the most prominent thinker on the most current topics debated in Latino studies....indispensable.

(Zaragosa Vargas Journal of American History )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Columbia University Press; Copyright 2000 edition (May 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0231110774
• ISBN-13: 978-0231110778
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #407,637 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #78 in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > Native American

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book that needs to be a major part of contemporary America, September 23, 2000

By 

Edrik Lopez (Gainesville, FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: From Bomba to Hip-Hop (Hardcover)

As a beginning graduate student in Latina/o Studies, I have been asking myself a simple question over and over: "Where have I been?" I have gone through public education in the United States for 17 years of my life, and have only recently found that there have been people writing since the start of the 1900s about the issues, experiences, struggles, and passions that I have thought were uniquely mine. Piri Thomas published _Down These Mean Streets_ in 1967. I just read it this past summer, my mother--right after I gave it to her. And the thought that has wondered in is, "why wasn't I told about his book earlier?" Is Piri Thomas' experience, a bond with African American culture that Juan Flores addresses in his book, such a marginal experience in American life, that it took a suggestion by Amazon.com for a man with 4 years of university education to be aware of the book? As the population of Latino/as in the United States grows to the levels of being the largest minority group in the country, there will have to be a shifting of Latina/o literature, theory, and any cultural products from the margins of American life to the center contemporary discussion. It is these products that Juan Flores probes and analyses with keen insight that places the Puerto Rican aspect of the Latino experience into mainstream intellectual thought. From "the Madonna incident" in Puerto Rico, to the ties that Puerto Ricans have with Hip-Hop, and the current status of Puerto Rico that he sadly calls a "Lite Colony," Flores' book is one that should be read by anyone interested in the affairs of American culture.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just for Puerto Ricans....., October 27, 2000

By 

Thomas Pena (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: From Bomba to Hip-Hop: Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity (Paperback)

The title of Mr. Flores' book might be a little deceiving for those who are not familiar with the subject matter. Mr. Flores uses music as a jumping off point for some very thought provoking themes that pertain (in my opinion) to all Latino's. Juan Flores goes from scholarly themes like colonialism to thoughts on the funeral of Cortijo and the history of the Boogaloo phenomena in New York City.

Mr. Flores makes you stop and think, then think again about issues you may have had preconceived notions about. I really enjoyed being challenged intellectually as I read this book.

I recently attended a lecture/performance (at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City) of "From Bomba to Hip-Hop" conducted by Mr. Flores, music historian Rene Lopez and Mike Wallace (who won a Pulitzer Prize for his book, "Gotham.") True to form, it was a very unique, educational and entertaining experience.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A five rating, but with a footnote., December 12, 2000

By 

David Garcia (Apalachin, New York USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: From Bomba to Hip-Hop: Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity (Paperback)

While Juan Flores is perceptive in his discussion of the Puerto Rican component of Latino culture, and discusses other major critics like Perez Firmat and Stavans, I was frankly surprised not to see any discussion of William Luis's Dance Between Two Cultures: Latino Caribbean Literature Written in the United States, which in my estimation is as important as those written by the critics Flores discusses. The value of Luis's study is that he addresses the same Puerto Rican community mentioned in Flores' book, but Luis also contextualizes this community by considering its relation to the Cuban and Dominican components of Latino culture. Anyone interested in understanding Latino literature and culture should also read Dance Between Two Cultures, which contains perceptive readings of Latino Caribbean literature unavailable in any other study.