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.
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.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction. Bregando the Sugar Beet Fields 1
1. Family and Fatherhood in "a New Era for All": Populist Politics and Reformed Colonialism 25
2. Building Homes, Domesticity Dreams, and the Drive to Modernity 59
3. Removing "Excess Population": Redirecting the Great Migration 90
4. Arriving in Michigan: The Collapse of the Dream 118
5. The Brega Expands 148
Conclusion. Persistent Bregas 173
Notes 191
Bibliography 257
Index 295
What People are Saying About This
The Canal Builders: Making America's Empire at the Panama Canal - Julie Greene
"In this fascinating study, Eileen J. Suárez Findlay reinterprets Puerto Rican history in the mid-twentieth century by placing labor migration, populist politics, and gender at the heart of her narrative. Thousands of Puerto Rican migrant workers, seeking modernity and an escape from the harsh colonialism on their home island, journeyed to sugar beet fields in Michigan. There they found exploitation harsher than they had known. Findlay eloquently explores their travels and travails and shows how they reshaped both U.S. colonialism and Puerto Rican populism."
Blurred Borders: Transnational Migration between the Hispanic Caribbean and the United States - Jorge Duany
"Eileen J. Suárez Findlay's new work illuminates a forgotten chapter of Puerto Rican history—the 1950 'Operation Farmlift,' which ended in protests by migrant workers in Michigan's sugar beet fields. Findlay's analysis is meticulously documented, imaginative, and insightful. It is also sensitive to the multiple intersections among gender, race, and class in postwar Puerto Rican economic development, colonial reforms, and mass migration. I learned much from reading this admirable book."
