ABSTRACT

Puerto Ricans have been in Hawaii for 82 years and have two public images: negative and nonexistent. It all depends on whom one asks, and one does have to ask. We have no barrios, no colmados (grocery stores), boticas or botánicas (drugstores), no galería (gallery), no legal defense fund, no recreation center or clinics, no Puerto Rican Studies, no famous puertorriqueños. In fact at the moment we do not even have an infamous Puerto Rican. Of all the labor groups recruited to serve the plantation system, the Puerto Rican is now the most invisible. How did the Puerto Rican get caught in this paradox of negative image and invisibility?