El Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños
Director: Edwin Meléndez
Towards a Shared Vision for the Center for Puerto Rican Studies
By Edwin Meléndez
My appointment as the new Centro Director has set in motion a process of consultation to redefine the organization's vision and strategies to carry out its time-honored mission. I will take this opportunity to share some thoughts on what I consider key elements in such a challenging undertaking.
First, we need to understand where we stand. Since its inception in 1973, El Centro has been a well regarded institution servicing the Puerto Rican community in general, but more specifically the students and faculty of Hunter College and CUNY, and the city of New York. Centro researchers established a foundation for the intellectual field of Puerto Rican studies, and since its origin has provided unique insights for our understanding of the Diaspora, and for the incorporation of Puerto Ricans into communities across the United State. Subsequently, El Centro promoted an examination of this experience in the context of a broader Latino experience, and in relation to other racial minorities in the country. This intellectual contribution has been matched by a methodical effort to collect and preserves archival and other resources "documenting the history and culture of Puerto Ricans." Today, the award winning El Centro's library serves as an example to others on how an academic effort transcends the narrow confines of intellectual inquiry and becomes a vehicle for the empowerment of the community.
Establishing the foundation of El Centro was a challenging process. Over the years El Centro responded to dramatic changes in its environment by rethinking its strategy and adapting its programs. In this process, El Centro expanded its dissemination and outreach program responding to a highly demanding base of stakeholders, and maintaining close contact with the community. For instance, the Centro Journal has established itself as the leading journal of Puerto Rican culture in the United States, one of the leading journals in ethnic studies more generally. Our journal is the main vehicle exploring the dynamic relation of Puerto Rican culture to that of other Latinos and racial minorities, particularly African Americans. In addition to an active program of academic and cultural activities, El Centro established and maintains an active dissemination portfolio, scholarly exchange programs, a close collaboration with Puerto Rican studies departments throughout CUNY, and more recently fellowship support for young scholars. In recent years, a well designed web portal offers an immensely popular vehicle for the general public to have access to the library archival materials and other resources. Taken as a whole, the success of these strategies is an indication of a strong organization and offers a wealth of experience on how to respond to new organizational challenges.
The most important challenge to El Centro, and to Puerto Rican studies more generally, is intellectual relevancy. The roots of our academic tradition can be traced back to the tumultuous 1960s, when our community rejected preconceived notions of assimilation and searched for an appreciation of its identity. El Centro pioneers, Frank Bonilla and other collaborators of the History Task force, provided critical leadership for a community of young scholars to establish their own paradigms for an understanding of the Puerto Rican experience in all its complexity and richness. Not all agree with them, but no one could ignore their analysis and few were able to dismiss their findings. Over the years, the intellectual agenda evolved to tackle the Puerto Rican experience in relation to that of other Latinos and racial minorities. El Centro collaborated with other Latino research centers in the development of a common agenda, again playing a critical leadership role. Most recently, El Centro, and the Centro Journal more specifically, has served as a forum for some necessary "cultural wars," both within our own community and in relation to other communities, whether these are Latinos or African Americans. What distinguishes El Centro in these processes is its vanguard leadership role, a role that was grounded on a profound understanding of what was relevant at any given time.
For El Centro, intellectual relevancy departs from an understanding of the organization, its strength and weaknesses; and its environment, as we understand it in the present and how we expect it to evolve in the future, mostly over the next three to five years. Here is a brief listing of what I consider a departure point for a richer discussion on the current environment:
A changing demographic profile of the Puerto Rican community. Our core constituency of Puerto Ricans in the United States has changed tremendously over the last 30 years. The original wave of migrants to new York City and the Northeast are by now retired, with many moving back to the island, Florida or other areas; their children, baby-boomers, are now coping with the challenges of aging parents, college bills, and wandering about how to develop a realistic approach for retirement; the most recent generations search for an identity that is now expressed in English as a primary language, and not so much in salsa but in rhythms of hip hop and Reggaetón. Workers of all ages would have moved back and forth, to and from the island searching for jobs. While in the 1980's we had an explosion of demographic and socio-economic analyses of the social context and its implication for policy and community formation, for those of us that were part of that effort it is apparent the sharp decline in primary research in this area. Re-conceptualizing a research agenda has to begin with the question of how it is relevant to our core constituency.
A growing presence of Latinos in the United States. When El Centro was founded, Latinos constituted less than five percent of the total population, and Puerto Ricans and Cubans were the second and third largest national groups among Latinos. Black represented more than twice the size of the Latino population with an eleven percent share of the total. Today, Latinos are the largest ethnic minority group in the country, with over fifteen percent of the total population in the country, and together with other groups now represents about one third of the total population. The political, economic, cultural and social implications of these broad demographic changes are tremendous and not well understood at the moment. From the political climate surrounding immigration and the status of undocumented migrants, to the backlash in policies targeting disadvantaged populations, a relevant research agenda for Puerto Rican studies must include a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective regarding the social conditions of other Latinos and ethnic groups in the country, particularly of African Americans.
A declining perception the value of Puerto Rican Studies education. Given the discussion above, it is understandable why many administrators would question the value of Puerto Rican Studies. Perhaps a manifestation of this perception the merging of Puerto Rican Studies departments with other Latino or African American Studies Departments over the last decade, and the decline of Puerto Rican faculty across the CUNY system. One of the goals for El Centro may well be to establish a research, archival, outreach and dissemination program that is responsive to the new challenges pose by a rapidly changing environment and the practical needs of educational programs. This component of El Centro strategy may focus on fostering new pedagogies that celebrates and value our cultural and historical heritage, and use this knowledge to affect social change and public policy.
A declining interest among social sciences scholars in producing Puerto Rican focused research. Though it is hard to assess the number of scholarly articles and books that focus on topics related to Puerto Ricans in the US over the last decades, it is noticeable that less scholarly production is devoted to the understanding of our community in general, and more specifically to the first two environmental changes described above. Several factors may have contributed to such decline, such as the lack of suitable mentors for young scholars with interests in these topics, the lack of support mechanisms for those that do decide to undertake such topics, and the lack of opportunities for the discussion and dissemination of this research. These are all areas were encouragement and support of young scholars and El Centro leadership could make a marked difference.
Where do we go from here? Though the above is not a comprehensive listing of the environmental factors that might be considered for the re-development of a strategy to support El Centro's mission, we may well take them as a point of departure. Evidently, there are some core activities that El Centro should continue and we need to find ways to strengthen support for them, such as the library and its archives and collections, the journal, the website, and other outreach and dissemination activities. However, intellectual relevancy is primarily about directing research efforts to tackle the most significant problems of the time, and re-aligning organizational priorities to have academic, policy and community impact. A response to the challenges posed by a changing environment may involve a combination of objectives and strategies. Below are some strategies that may part of a broader effort to respond to the environmental challenges previously outlined:
1. Development and implementation of a research agenda that guides El Centro's work and has impact and relevance on current academic discourse, policy formulation, and community empowerment. This agenda should focus on fostering understanding of the changing environment for the Puerto Rican community in the United States, and in placing this understanding in a broader context of changes affecting Latinos and African American communities.
2. Establishing effective partnerships with Puerto Rican studies throughout CUNY to support the development of a common intellectual agenda. This effort would take advantage and build upon the increasing operational collaboration among various Puerto Rican studies programs in CUNY, but will direct new initiatives to identifying curriculum gaps, and prioritizing on the various forms of scholarship (e.g., Discovery, Teaching and Learning, Artistic Creativity, Integration, or Application) that can be deployed to close those gaps.
3. Explore and document the unfulfilled potential of contextual, service-learning pedagogies and how these approaches could allow Puerto Rican studies to be more connected and responsive to the needs of our communities. In addition to making learning more student-focused and potentially Puerto Rican studies more relevant, service and project-based methodologies provide academia a direct link to community development, social action, and policy debates.
4. Strengthening and establishing partnerships with other Latino and African American research centers and academic programs to examine issues of broad relevance to the status and well-being of minorities in the country. Specifically, El Centro needs to be part of a broader dialogue and research effort about immigration, racial discrimination, growing economic disparity, and asset building in our communities.
5. Strengthening the intellectual and scholarly pipeline of Puerto Ricans scholars and researchers. Obviously the beginning point for this strategy is to expand programs such as the Latino Leadership Opportunity Program sponsored by El Centro for the benefit of undergraduate students at Hunter. However, El Centro must be also involved with graduate programs throughout CUNY, and offer active support to young scholars who would like to share in a common research and intellectual agenda. Ideally, El Centro would sponsor an ongoing research seminar where young and more seasoned researchers exchange ideas and provide support to each other, and promote the formal and informal matching of mentors that will nurture the next generation of Puerto Rican scholars.
6. Strengthening and establishing partnerships with Puerto Rican community leaders to provide a formal mechanism for active participation in a common agenda. Specifically, El Centro should establish an Advisory Board that articulates external support for El Centro, including but not limited to financial contributions, promoting archival donations, voluntary work in El Centro activities and programs, and other forms of community participation.
Developing a shared vision for Centro is a collective process. As Director, I am committed to carry a broad consultation process with the administration, students and faculty at Hunter College and CUNY, and eventually to include other potential partners in New York City and nationally.
We already begun a dialogue with El Centro friends in a presentation and discussion entitled "In Pursuit of Puerto Rican Studies." It was a timely and well attended event. The presentation and feedback sheet are posted in our web site. Please let me know of your ideas and reactions to the presentation and to this essay. Soon we will post a draft of a vision statement as it evolves from conversations with all of our stakeholders. Please check the website frequently, or stop by our offices to share your ideas with our staff.
Once we settle on a common vision, as an organization, we will have a better sense of what El Centro can become in response to challenging times, and a road map on how to get there.
Best,
Edwin Meléndez
Director, Center for Puerto Rica Studies
Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning
695 Park Avenue, Room E-1409
New York, NY 10065
voice: 212-772-5695
Main: 212-772-5688
fax: 212-650-3673
edwin.melendez@hunter.cuny.edu
