Juan González

Harvest of Empire was very interesting and readable for me. The author, Juan Gonzales was born in Puerto Rico in 1947 and so already had U.S. citizenship when his family moved to New York the next year and he has lived in the U.S. ever since. He has been both an activist and a journalist and in his introduction says that his perspective on this subject is that of a Latino who is tired of having this story told by those who have not lived it. He is attempting to understand our hemisphere as one New World, north and south.

The text is divided into three parts: Roots, Branches, and Harvest. Roots covers the early years from 1500-1800, then the US acquisition of the Spanish Borderlands from 1810 to 1898, and the Era of the Banana Republics through 1950. The Branches covers the various groups of Hispanics who have come to the US such as the Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Cubans, etc. Harvest is about the way Latinos are influencing US politics, the debates on immigration since the eighties, bilingualism, and the effects free trade has had on the hemisphere as a whole and thus on immigration. He ends the book with his ideas about where the Americas should be going; ideas that will seem radical to some.

For me, at least, this was an eye-opening book and I would very much like to see the chapter Mr. Gonzales would write to cover the last 14 years since Harvest of Empire. was published. Recommended for those interested in this subject from a Latino immigrant's viewpoint.… (meer)