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This chapter explores the urban geographies of Puerto Rican migrants who reside in New York City’s Spanish Harlem neighborhood, as well as the pressures of gentrification in the superheated New York residential market.

This chapter explores the urban geographies of Puerto Rican migrants who reside in New York City’s Spanish Harlem neighborhood, as well as the pressures of gentrification in the superheated New York residential market.

During the late 1950s and the 1960s, Iluminada Sierra Ortiz and Carmen Oramas Caballery collaborated in their religious work with the intent to unify the larger Latin American community, particularly Caribbean women, then flooding into New York. The extant religious imagery from their homes and religious centers reveals critical reinterpretations of Caribbean women’s history. In these arts and altars for Espiritismo and Santería, historic, nineteenth-century Afro-Caribbean women figure as leaders and mediators between the past and the present. Examination of their altar designs illustrates important reconsiderations of Afro-Caribbean women’s histories relevant to the experiences of their multi-ethnic community struggling for survival in Spanish Harlem.

This chapter examines the relationship between African America, Latin America, and the Caribbean through the music and its associated performance practices realized on the stage of the Apollo Theater in Harlem from 1934 to the early 2000s. Through the lens of race, nation, and ethnicity, the complex and often tenuous relations among the diverse peoples who colluded and collided on the stage of the Apollo to produce some of the most significant and influential contributions to popular cultural expression in the United States throughout the twentieth century are explored. Though the Apollo is considered one of the most significant and influential venues in the twentieth century for African American music, studying the discourse and historical narratives concerning the theater’s history and traditions reveals that the venue was also one of the most important Caribbean and Latin American stages in the United States during that time. Situated just blocks from one of the most vibrant Caribbean and Latin American neighborhoods in North America, Spanish Harlem or El Barrio, the Apollo Theater was and continues to be a nexus for intercultural exchange between African American, Latin American, and Caribbean musics.

Chapter 1 introduces the history of Islamic Spain and the remembrance of it by the first Latino Muslim group in the United States, la Alianza Islámica, the Islamic Alliance. Although there have been several recorded instances of individual Latinos embracing Islam since the 1920s, no direct historical link exists between Muslims in Spain and Latino Muslims in the United States. Instead, the memory of Islamic Spain has been used to frame Latinos as historically connected to Islam rather than completely foreign to it. Additionally, the Alianza drew from other civil rights organizational models to develop several centers in New York where they worked to propagate Islam, provide social services, and engage in political activism. Additionally, the Alianza experienced marginalization from broader Muslim organizations and sought to develop autonomously from them. Through its unique origin histories and various activities, the Alianza helped to crystalize a first wave of Latino Muslims.

Centering the lives, music, and experiences of Tupac Shakur and his mother, Afeni Shakur, this chapter explores the migration stories of black people across the Black Map through the lens of hip hop music, the Black Panther Party, the Up South, Out South, and West South. Emphasizing the importance of cultural production and black music, the authors highlight the role of race, place, police brutality, and gender in black life and politics. Focused on the connections across space and time, this chapter demonstrates the key role black power politics, police brutality, and hip hop in the politics and migrations of black people throughout the chocolate cities.