Claiming Equality: Puerto Rican Farmworkers in Western New York

n July of 1966, a group of Puerto Rican migrant workers protested against police brutality and discrimination in North Collins, a small farm community of western NewYork. Puerto Rican farmworkers made up a substantial part of the population, and had transformed the ethnic, racial, and gender landscape of the town. Local officials and residents produced and reproduced images of Puerto Ricans as inferior subjects within US racial and ethnic hierarchies. Those negative images of Puerto Ricans shaped the way in which local authorities elaborated policies of social control against these farmworkers in North Collins. At the same time, Puerto Rican farmworkers challenged those existing images and power relations that attempted to stigmatize them as inferior. They affirmed their presence in western New York and, in effect, stood up for their rights as citizens, as Puerto Ricans, and as Latinos