Colonial Migrants at the Heart of Empire

" Colonial Migrants at the Heart of Empire brilliantly examines the experience of Puerto Rican migrant farmworkers in the United States within an immigration regimen that categorizes them as racially inferior citizens and inefficient, expensive workers. Relying on a thick historical ethnography, it bridges the study of labor, colonialism, immigration, and race. This is scholarship at its best!"--Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, author of Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America "Grounded in extensive research, this book presents the most comprehensive examination so far of Puerto Rican postwar migrant farm labor in the United States. The book provides a comparative approach to other colonial and U.S. labor programs and closely examines migrant life in the labor camps, migrants' relationship with U.S. rural communities, and labor and civil rights struggles."--Edgardo Meléndez, author of Sponsored Migration: The State and Puerto Rican Postwar Migration to the United States "In this highly original work, historian and ethnographer Ismael García-Colón documents the social construction of Puerto Rican migrant labor and its role in shaping U.S. immigration policies. Among his many insights, he elucidates the courageous efforts of Puerto Rican workers to thwart racism and commodification with their enlightened ideals of social justice."--David Griffith, coauthor of Fishers at Work, Workers at Sea: A Puerto Rican Journey through Labor and Refuge