 | Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños
Hunter College of the City University of New York
695 Park Ave.
New York, New York 10021
Tel. 212-772-5689
Fax. 212-650-3673
E-mail: hcordero@shiva.hunter.cuny.edu
Director: Juan Flores
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Mission Statement
The mandate of the Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños was drafted in
1972 by a coalition of students, community activists and academics. They were
responding to a need for relevant knowledge by a community repeatedly denied
access to academia. On August 15, 1972, the Board of Higher Education
established the Centro and defined a set of objectives which have guided the
Centro ever since. These are:
- To create new knowledge and quickly and comprehensively transfer it to a
long-denied community.
- To serve as a university-based resource and locus for research, preparation
and testing of new materials, planning and training, coordination, and
communication not readily available within the capability of existing
departments.
- To develop collaborative and collective designs for research, bringing in
both new and seasoned scholars, students, and community into working teams to
focus on specific research problems.
- To create a flexible framework for group reflection, critical examination of
ideas, orderly collection of new information, and for consensus building among
a broadly representative group involved in Puerto Rican Studies.
The Centro has promoted disciplined inquiry into matters of significance
to Puerto Ricans and, as a result, Centro work has emerged as a critical
force in the ongoing debate about Puerto Ricans and other excluded minorities.
In addition, it is becoming increasingly recognized that the particularities of
the Puerto Rican experience shed light on such global issues as the
internationalization of the world economy, decolonization, inter-ethnic
conflict, and enduring class, race, and gender inequality.
Over the years, the Centro's task forces-History and Migration, Political
Economy, Language and Education, Cultural Studies, and Higher Education--as
well as the Media Unit and the Centro's acclaimed journal, CENTRO--have
published and produced materials that are original contributions to their
respective fields, and also serve the practical needs of the Puerto Rican
community. The Centro's Library, which is open to students, researchers
and the general public, contains extensive holdings related to the Puerto Rican
experience. The Centro also houses the Intercambio, the City University
of New York/University of Puerto Rico Academic Exchange Program; the
CUNY/Caribbean Exchange; and the Puerto Rican/Latino Education Roundtable. The
Centro also hosted the Inter-University Program for Latino Research between
1987 and 1995.
Staff