Eileen Suárez Findlay examines the labor and migratory policies of an emerging colonial-populist state in Puerto Rico under the leadership of Luis Muñoz Marín's Partido Popular Democrático (PPD). In order to carry out the socioeconomic and political restructuration of the island, the PPD leadership deemed as vital the mass migration to the US mainland of what it considered excess population. Though this is a well-known story, Suárez Findlay presents a fresh take by focusing on the understudied Puerto Rican labor migration to rural Michigan. This is an important contribution in itself, since, with few exceptions, works on the Puerto Rican diaspora have focused on the postwar mass migration to urban centers in the Eastern Seaboard.
Suárez Findlay presents us with a gender analysis of the familial narratives used by the PPD leadership to highlight the central role that migration played in the party's plans for the island. The familial language...
