Join us as authors Ulla Berg and Aldo Lauria Santiago discuss their recent publication: Latinas/os in New Jersey: Histories, Communities, and Cultures with panel members Kathleen López and Melanie Plasencia.

Since the 1890s, New Jersey has attracted hundreds of thousands of Caribbean and Latin American migrants. The state’s rich economic history, high-income suburbs, and strong public sector have all contributed to attracting, retaining, and setting the stage for Latin American and Caribbean immigrants and secondary-step migrants from New York City. Since the 1980s, however, Latinos have developed a more complex presence in the state’s political landscape and institutions. The emergence of Latino-majority towns and cities and coalition politics facilitated the election of Latino mayors, council persons, and many social and community leaders, as well as the election of statewide officers.

This collection brings together innovative and empirically grounded scholarship from different disciplines and interdisciplinary fields of study and addresses topics including the demographic history of Latinos in the state, Latino migration from gateway cities to suburban towns, Latino urban enclaves, Latino economic and social mobility, Latino students and education, the New Jersey Dream Act and in-state tuition act organizing, Latinos and criminal justice reform, Latino electoral politics and leadership, and undocumented communities.

Ulla Berg is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Latino and Caribbean Studies and Anthropology at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. She is the author of Mobile Selves: Race, Migration and Belonging Between Peru and the US. Her research focuses on historical and contemporary processes and experiences of migration and mobility within Latin America and between this region and the United States. 

Aldo Lauria Santiago is a Professor in the Departments of Latino and Caribbean Studies and History at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. He is the co-author of Rethinking the Struggle for Puerto Rican Rights. At Rutgers he directs the Center for Latin American Studies and co-coordinates the Latino Studies Research Initiative.

Kathleen López is an Associate Professor in the Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies at Rutgers University, New Brunwisk. She specializes in the historical intersections between Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean. Her book Chinese Cubans: A Transnational History examines Chinese migrants in Cuba from the mid-nineteenth century to the present through archival and ethnographic research in Cuba, China, and the United States.

Melanie Plasencia is an Assistant Professor of Latinx Studies, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Rutgers University, Newark. Her research examines how older immigrants in the U.S. negotiate the challenges of aging in the context of extreme poverty, deteriorating health, and diminishing government support. Her research can be read in the Journals Social Problems and The Gerontologist.

Co-Sponsored by: Labyrinth Books, Princeton Public Library

Sponsorship of an event does not constitute institutional endorsement of external speakers or views presented.