Recovering and Re-constructing Early Twentieth-Century Hispanic Immigrant Print Culture in the US

Abstract

Since the mid-nineteenth century, Hispanic immigrants in the US have written and published books and periodicals and sustained other forms of print culture to serve their enclaves in their native language, maintaining a connection with the homeland while helping the immigrants to adjust to a new society and culture here. Hispanic immigrant print culture shares many of the distinctions that Robert E. Park identified in The Immigrant Press and Its Control (1922): (1) the predominant use of the language of the homeland, in (2) serving a population united by that language, irrespective of national origin, and (3) the need to interpret events from their own peculiar racial or nationalist point of view, and furthering nationalism (9–13). According to Park, the immigrant press serves a population in transition from the land of origin to the US by providing news and interpretation to orient them and facilitate adjustment to the new society while maintaining the link with the old society. Underlying Park’s distinctions and those of other students of immigration are the concepts of the American