Blurred Borders: Transnational Migration between the Hispanic Caribbean and the United States
Jorge Duany
2011, University of North Carolina Press
324 pages, hardback
THE historic vote in Puerto Rico in November in which the Boricua, in effect, gave the thumbs up to statehood will take some explaining, and this book will help. Duany examines how migrants to the US from Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic maintain multiple ties to their countries of origin leading what the author calls increasingly “bifocal” lives – those that straddle two or more states, markets, languages and cultures. It is an important observation, addressing not just the erosion of the concept of nation-state in the Caribbean but also in the US itself as its society becomes more transnational and, indeed, more Hispanic. This book will be valuable to anyone setting out to explore migration and its many meanings in a global era.- EC
