The Near Northwest Side Story: Migration, Displacement, and Puerto Rican Families

by Gina Perez

In The Near Northwest Side Story, Gina M. Pérez offers an intimate and unvarnished portrait of Puerto Rican life in Chicago and San Sebastian, Puerto Rico―two places connected by a long history of circulating people, ideas, goods, and information. Pérez's masterful blend of history and ethnography explores the multiple and gendered reasons for migration, why people maintain transnational connections with distant communities, and how poor and working-class Puerto Ricans work to build meaningful communities.

Pérez traces the changing ways that Puerto Ricans have experienced poverty, displacement, and discrimination and illustrates how they imagine and build extended families and dense social networks that link San Sebastian to barrios in Chicago. She includes an incisive analysis of the role of the state in shaping migration through such projects as the Chardon Plan, Operation Bootstrap, and the Chicago Experiment. The Near Northwest Side Story provides a unique window on the many strategies people use to resist the negative consequences of globalization, economic development, and gentrification.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Cities

292 pages, Paperback

First published September 4, 2004

Reviews

[Lorna · Rating 5 out of 5]

my sister's book, so i am biased, but she is brilliant. the book problematizes our gendered assumptions about migration and transmigration within the Puerto Rican diaspora and deals thoughtfully with the tensions between place/space and belonging. in particular, the text deals with the raced and gendered discourses of movement and place-making and reveals a complicated mapping of the interconnectedness of Puerto Rican communities both on the mainland and the island.

[Heather Montes Ireland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a well-written, thoughtful multi-sited ethnography of Puerto Rican migrants in Chicago & San Sebastian, P.R. This is what ethnography *should* be...narrative, theoretical & historically contextual. A wonderful contribution to migration studies, Latina/o studies, & gender studies.

[Bob Entwistle · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this book is now over 20 years old, it's a fascinating look at the Chicago Puerto Rican community and the ways that migration between the island and Chicago affect the community. Also an interesting view into how the gentrification and up-scaling of some of the neighborhoods in Chicago affected things, causing movement within Chicago itself.

The author, now a professor of cultural anthropology at Oberlin University used a lot of research for her PHD thesis as the basis for this book. Also based on her experiences working and teaching in Chicago and working in a community in Puerto Rico where a lot of the out-migration was to Chicago.

Very detailed and interesting because personal stories of the various families are related. More questionable might be, how valid is it to extrapolate general assumptions based on these two communities? For example, would migration to New York or Miami differ significantly? Or migration from more urbanized areas of Puerto Rico show different conclusions than the more rural area Perez studies? But overall, a wonderful book for me to learn more about Chicago and Puerto Rico as well.

[J-kwon Stanley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh man my brain hurts after reading this. I read this while teaching in the Near Northwest side. It's interesting reading about how wicker park is fast gentrifying when now it basically couldn't be anymore gentrified.

I am part of this gentrification myself. I lived in Logan Square a number of years in the 2010s and now am living in Humboldt and teaching in schools here. I picked this book up to understand the area and Chicago Puerto Ricans more. It was very informative and good information to know as an educator!

When I got it, I wasn't expecting it to be so academic and sociological, but I did my best to rise to the occasion and I quite enjoyed the ride.

[esther]

really looking forward to reading this...the title grabbed me (love "West Side Story"!) and the reviews seemed encouraging... adding to my anthro spree

[Candace]

An ethnography I had to read for anthropology.