BOOK PRESENTATION & DISCUSSION: "Pioneros": Puerto Rican Migration to New York, 1896-1948 Speaker :  Gabriel Haslip-Viera

PUERTO RICANS IN THE MERCHANT MARINES, THE DOCKS OF SOUTH BROOKLYN

When I first saw the galleys for this book, I was surprised to see all these images or photographs either taken by my father or taken of my father -- following up on Felo’s comments the fact that the book may contain too many pictures of Jesus Colon, too many pitures of his brother Joaquin, etc., etc. But then I remembered in an earlier conversation that I had with Pedro Juan when I donated really this very modest collection of photographs and documents having to do with my family. When I had this discussion with Pedro Juan, it dawned on me that they had this gap with regard to the documentation of the merchant marine experience of Puerto Ricans -- especially in Brooklyn. In the early part of the 20th Century, the docks in South Brooklyn were the places where the ships from the Caribbean, from Puerto Rico, Cuba, Dominican Republic and also South America -- it was those docks where the ships from those countries, those regions, came, And so one of the early concentrations of Puerto Ricans emerged in that area called, at that time, it used to be called South Brooklyn, today it is called Cobble Hill because of the gentrification that has taken place. So this was a surprise to see these photographs reproduced in volume, in the galleys and later when I saw the book.

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