MA~fA CRIMTNA RODRfGUEZ


multiple voices and linguistic registers- as a point of unity that underlies
the richness of the literary creation as well as the critical perspectives on
the socioeconomic changes, circular migration, and broader political issues
of the era.
 Publications since 2000 encompass diverse cultural, artistic, and literary
expressions and critical sociological and anthropological perspectives.
Titles such as Boricuas in Gotham, Mambo Montage, Colonial Subjects: Puerto
Ricans in a Global Perspective, and Migration, Transnationalization, and Race
in a Changing New York engage in the variety of discussions taking place in
metropolitan, university, and community centers in Puerto Rico and the
United States. Jorge Duany, one of the most perceptive scholars on
Caribbean migration, published Puerto Rican Nation on the Move, Identities
on the Island and the United States in 2002. The study has initiated a widened
dialogue by taking head on the still divisive terms of "nation" and "identity."
While postmodernist intellectuals in Puerto Rico declared any concept of
national identity null and void and labeled as "backward" anyone who used
terms such as patria, nacionalidad, orgullo patrio, and independence, the
PRSA titled their biannual conference in Chicago in 2002, "Haciendo patria."
In 2004, the conference was held in New York, and a number of scholars
and cultural workers historicized different moments in the lives of Puerto
Ricans on the Island and in the United States. Most of the essays and the
Manifesto included in this issue were first presented at the New York
conference.
 Undoubtedly, questioning, redefinitions, and new formulations of national
identity are an integral part of this issue entitled "Puerto Rico: The Floating
Homeland/La patria flotante." It is precisely this mobility -what Jorge Duany
calls "a nation on the move"- that characterizes Puerto Ricans no matter
where they come from: mountain towns, the coastline, chaotic urbanized
spaces, old colonial cities, the metropolitan sprawl of greater San Juan, the
Bronx, Brooklyn, East Harlem, Hartford, Miami, Chicago, Orlando... Puerto
Rican communities are always on the move; that is, they confront and
absorb the sense of being constrained by space, by harsh conditions, or
even by patriarchal/ hierarchical structures. Members of these communities
find ways to re-establish security and stability while relocating because of
support systems that include -but also go beyond-family, relatives,
neighbors, acquaintances, social clubs, political parties, and community
associations. Emotional ties involve the preservation of the real and the
construction of an imagined homeland.
 The contributors to this issue emphasize the movement of Puerto Ricans
within the Island and, of course, to U.S. cities and towns where the
construction of an imagined homeland becomes an essential element of
 oial and cultural survival. Elidio La Torre and Victoria Nfifiez center their
essays on two outstanding individuals, Bernardo Vega and Antonia Pantoja,