ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aims to provide a comprehensive state of the art of research on Caribbean Spanish in the United States from different theoretical perspectives and linguistic areas. It examines the distribution of the main variants of /r/ among Puerto Ricans in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a city where Puerto Ricans are a minority in the total population and also in the Hispanic community. The book explores preferences in subject expression forms among Spanish heritage speakers enrolled in a public university in Florida. It discusses how Spanish spoken by Dominicans on St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, shows evidence of influence from English-language features that are consistent with Dominican Spanish in other contact environments and some new features that are emerging as the result of uniquely St. Thomas English Creole influences.
