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Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America. By Juan Gonzalez. (New York: Viking, 2000. xx, 346 pp. $27.95, ISBN 0-670-- 86720-9.)
The journalist Juan Gonzalez brings both immediacy and sweep to his history of Latinos in America. Narratives of colonialism, repression, rebellion, and transnational migration are interspersed with vignettes of individuals Gonzalez has interviewed during his career. He also draws upon his own experiences as a native Puerto Rican raised in a New York City housing project, where he co-founded the Young Lords, a radical Puerto Rican nationalist organization, during the 1960s. The result is popular history at its best-a panoramic overview that reveals the brutal Latin American roots of Latino communities in the United States. You can quibble over the occasional historical inaccuracy, but no other work weds the many Latino...