ABSTRACT

This is a critical moment for the Aguirre community, as it is for communities across the island and for Puerto Rico in general, as the firsthand knowledge and experiences of generations of working-class Puertorriqueos begin to fade. The process of remembrance and the selection of autobiographical memories that reinforce individual identities by focusing on the positive memories of place' have been especially important since the cessation of sugar production in 1990, as the community has languished in the aftermath of deindustrialisation and the social fragmentation as a result. The positive memories that anchor these conceptions of identity are not simple nostalgia for a bygone era, but instead represent an ongoing struggle to maintain meaningful self-identities, the need to sustain a coherent sense of being and the continuation of the generations' long negotiation of working-class identity in Central Aguirre.