Imaging The Great Puerto Rican Family

Reviews / Votes

Drawing on photographs and works of art, Llorens explores the representations of Puerto Rican people during 'the American century' and the sociopolitical dimensions of those representations. She develops these arguments using current and popular theorists, including Giorgio Agamben, Michel Foucault, Alfred Gell, and Susan Sontag, and appropriately references contributions from Puerto Rican scholars fairly thoroughly. These qualities contribute to the potential value of the work in broadening recognition of the Puerto Rican experience among scholars in anthropology, art history, and politics of representation, for example. . . .Llorens' work here is . . . commendable for scholarly audiences, to whom the material is likely to be unfamiliar, and accessible for use at the advanced college level and above. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. * Choice Reviews * Llorens engages the complex and contradictory images of nation, gender, and race, all set within the history of Puerto Rico and its colonial relationship with the United States. Her narrative invites a much-needed debate about the construction of race, racism, and nation in Puerto Rico. * New West Indian Guide * Hilda Llorens offers a special and coherent account of Puerto Rican politics and culture in the 20th century as viewed through the lens of photographic and graphic depiction. Here are the contours of the historic transfer from one colonial regime to another and the passage into the "American century," presented with theoretical sophistication and in lucid, engaging prose. Step into this world and walk through it with this highly informed guide and you are sure to emerge more knowledgeable and critically sensitive to the many issues and challenges that have confronted the "Great Puerto Rican family," including and highlighting its long-ignored Black stepchildren, while gaining a deft exposure to its rich photographic and artistic traditions. -- Juan Flores, New York University Llorens' book offers a much-needed interdisciplinary analysis of the relationship between art and the visual politics of 'othering' entrenched in colonial practices. Llorens looks closely at photographs, visual works, and art produced during key periods of Puerto Rican history (between 1890 and 1990). By skillfully contrasting local and colonial visual representations, she reveals how the work of Puerto Rican artists is in dialogue (sometimes also in confrontation) with U. S. economic interests and institutions. -- Isar P. Godreau, University of Puerto Rico at Cayey