ABSTRACT

To teach the Hispanophone Caribbean, author finds the necessity to give the students an overview of the area's sociohistorical panorama in order to ground the creative works in their cultural and historical heritage. Even when the students are familiar with the area, he still like to begin with a review of historical background because the students often have the context of only one island, that of their family of origin. Clearly, the ease with which Puerto Ricans come and go from the island to the United States has resulted in interesting uses of interlinked cultures. Absolutely necessary for students to know is the background historical information on the multiple connections of these territories with the United States, including American interventions in unwelcome ways in the last two centuries. In the last decades, Dominican migration to the United States has intensified so much that by the twenty-first century their numbers outstripped both Puerto Rican and Cuban cohorts.