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Podcast: New Books in Caribbean Studies
Episode: Jorell A. Meléndez-Badillo, "The Lettered Barriada: Workers, Archival Power, and the Politics of Knowledge in Puerto Rico" (Duke UP, 2021)
Description: In The Lettered Barriada: Workers, Archival Power, and the Politics of Knowledge in Puerto Rico (Duke UP, 2021), Jorell A. Meléndez-Badillo tells the story of how a cluster of self-educated workers burst into Puerto Rico's world of letters and navigated the colonial polity that emerged out of the 1898 US occupation. They did so by asserting themselves as citizens, producers of their own historical narratives, and learned minds. Disregarded by most of Puerto Rico's intellectual elite, these workers engaged in dialogue with international peers and imagined themselves as part of a global community. They also entered the world of politics thr...