Memoirs of Bernardo Vega : A Contribution to the History of the Puerto Rican Community in New York

by Andreu Iglesias, Cesar

• ISBN13: 9780853456568
• ISBN10: 0853456569
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1984-06-01
• Publisher: Monthly Review Pr

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	viii
Translator's preface	ix
Juan Flores
Introduction	xiii
Cesar Andreu Iglesias
PART 1. THE EMIGRANT LIFE
From my hometown Cayey to San Juan, and how I arrived in New York without a watch	3	(4)
The trials and tribulations of an emigrant in the iron Tower of Babel on the eve of World War I	7	(5)
Proletarians extend a hand, but hunger pinches and there is no remedy but to work in a weapons factory	12	(7)
The customs and traditions of the tabaqueros and what it was like to work in a cigar factory in New York City	19	(8)
An amorous experience and other incidents that lend substance to this truthful tale	27	(12)
PART 2. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The Vega ancestry in America, a wealth of history with a touch of myth	39	(9)
New York: focal point of the Antillean revolution, and the role of the Cuban and Puerto Rican communities	48	(7)
The vicissitudes of the revolution; the war ends in Cuba, but the bright light of Jose Marti shines forth in New York	55	(8)
With the help of Puerto Ricans like Sotero Figueroa and Pachin Marin, the Partido Revolucionario Cubano is founded	63	(9)
The struggle to carry the war over to Puerto Rico and, finally, the imposition of United States military force	72	(11)
PART 3. AFTER 1898
How the century began for the Puerto Rican community, and related incidents	83	(9)
On diatribes and insults against Puerto Ricans	92	(9)
Day-to-day life in New York and other details	101	(10)
PART 4. THE 1920s
Political campaigns, the decline of tobacco, and the Great Depression	111	(8)
New organizations, an old rag business, and back to cigarmaking	119	(8)
Dissension, internal conflict, and Puerto Rico comes out the loser	127	(8)
The ``third party,'' an underwater job, and the sweltering summer of 1926	135	(8)
A year of personal disaster with a happy ending	143	(8)
The consolidation of El Barrio, and new pages in its history	151	(10)
PART 5. THE DEPRESSION YEARS
Two reprehensible but timely events in my life	161	(7)
Luck smiles and I make money, without for a moment abandoning the struggle	168	(8)
Of how even the best of intentions can sometimes do more harm than good, and other events	176	(7)
Vito Marcantonio, ``champion of the poor'' and advocate for the Puerto Rican people	183	(8)
The end of the 1930s: Spain and other events that preceded World War II	191	(10)
PART 6. MID-CENTURY
I am on the move, determined once again to strike out against injustice	201	(8)
Where an account is given of how I joined the censorship office, and other wartime experiences	209	(8)
Some anonymous achievements with no hope of compensation, and the crucial year 1945	217	(8)
Confronting hate campaigns; further struggles in defense of Puerto Rico	225	(8)
An unfinished chapter with an unwritten moral: it is always more interesting to live than to write	233	(2)
Index of names	235