During the early colonial encounter, children's books were among the
first kinds of literature produced by US writers introducing the new
colony, its people, and the US's role as a twentieth-century colonial
power to the public. Subsequently, youth literature and media were
important tools of Puerto Rican cultural and educational elite
institutions and Puerto Rican revolutionary thought as a means of
negotiating US assimilation and upholding a strong Latin American,
Caribbean national stance.
In Side by Side: US Empire, Puerto Rico, and the Roots of American
Youth Literature and Culture, author Marilisa Jiménez García focuses on
the contributions of the Puerto Rican community to American youth,
approaching Latinx literature as a transnational space that provides a
critical lens for examining the lingering consequences of US and Spanish
colonialism for US communities of color. Through analysis of texts
typically outside traditional Latinx or literary studies such as young
adult literature, textbooks, television programming, comics, music,
curriculum, and youth movements, Side by Side represents the only
comprehensive study of the contributions of Puerto Ricans to American
youth literature and culture, as well as the only comprehensive study
into the role of youth literature and culture in Puerto Rican literature
and thought.
Considering recent debates over diversity in children's and young adult
literature and media and the strained relationship between Puerto Rico
and the US, Jiménez García's timely work encourages us to question who
constitutes the expert and to resist the homogenization of Latinxs, as
well as other marginalized communities, that has led to the erasure of
writers, scholars, and artists.
