Review by Choice Review
The Puerto Rican community in Brentwood, New York, a suburban community in Suffolk County, Long Island, dates from the 1930s. It has steadily increased and now houses 78 percent of the Hispanic residents in the area, numbering some 15,000 out of a population of 45,000. Torres's study combines insights into Puerto Rican communal life with a detailed analysis of language structure. Primarily as a participant observer between 1989 and 1991 in a multiplicity of public venues (e.g., street festivals, public hearings), Torres (Univ. of Kentucky) administered language-attitude questionnaires and conducted qualitative interviews on the Puerto Rican migration experience, which formed the basis for his data on the similarities and differences in the social and linguistic behavior of first- and second-generation Puerto Ricans. Torres concludes that the Brentwood Puerto Rican community "has very positive attitudes toward their culture and both Spanish and English." It remains to be seen how the Puerto Rican community will respond to its new Central and Latin American neighbors. Torres rejects the myth of the presumed similarity of Hispanic communities in the US and he cautions that "the relationship between old and new immigrants is fraught with difficulties." See also Spanish in the United States: Sociolinguistic Issues, ed. by John Bergen (1990). Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. F. Cordasco; emeritus, Montclair State University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
