Description

What happens when persons of several Latin American national groups reside in the same neighborhood-- Milagros Ricourt and Ruby Danta consider the stories of women of different nationalities--Colombian, Cuban, Dominican, Ecuadorian, Peruvian, Puerto Rican, Uruguayan, and others--who live together in Corona, a working-class neighborhood in Queens. Corona has long been an arrival point for immigrants and is now made up predominantly of Spanish-speaking immigrants from the Caribbean and South and Central America, with smaller numbers from Asia, Africa, and Europe. There are also long-established populations of white Americans, mainly of Italian origin, and African Americans.The authors find that the new pan-Latin American community in Corona has emerged from the interactions of everyday living. Hispanas de Queens focuses on the places where women gather in Corona--bodegas, hospitals, schoolyards, and Roman Catholic and Protestant churches--to show how informal alliances arise from proximity.Ricourt and Danta document how a group of leaders, mainly women, consciously promoted this strong sense of community to build panethnic organizations and a Latino political voice. Hispanas de Queens shows how a new group identity--Hispanic or Latino--is formed without replacing an individual's identification as an immigrant from a particular country. Instead, an additional identity is created and can be mobilized by pan-Latino leaders and organizations.