Melissa Fuster - Caribeños at the Table

Caribeos at the Table

How Migration, Health, and Race Intersect in New York City

Melissa Fuster

The University of North Carolina Press CHAPEL HILL

The research contained in this book was supported by the New York University Provosts Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, the Professional Staff CongressCity University of New York (PSC-CUNY) Research Award Program, the CUNY Diversity Projects Development Fund, the CUNY Faculty Fellowship Publication Program, the Claire and Leonard Tow Faculty Research Travel Fellowship, the CUNY Mellon Faculty Diversity Career Enhancement Initiative, and the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at CUNY Hunter College.

My gratitude goes out to mentors, colleagues, and friends who provided advice, encouragement, and feedback in this process, pushing me to dig deeper while making me a better scholar in the process. I am lucky to have been able to workshop these pages with an amazing group of mentors, whose scholarship and ongoing feedback were instrumental to the analysis contained within. In this regard, I want to thank Jorge Duany, Cruz Miguel Ortz Cuadra, Krishnendu Ray, and Alyshia Glvez. This book also benefited from a multidisciplinary community of scholars and friends who provided community connections, feedback, or simply much needed fresh eyes for the writing. These individuals include (in first-name alphabetical order) Elisa Gonzlez, Eris Garriga, Judith Anderson, Kara Schlichting, Lourdes Castro Mortillaro, Margaret Handley, Margrethe Horlyck-Romanovsky, Natasha Wilson, and Sophia Domokos. I must also acknowledge the assistance provided by Brooklyn College students Kevin Guerrero, Elina Banks, Leah Galitzdorfer and Tara Frank, who took the time to assist in this work, including via data collection or other research activities.

My motivation to write this book was born out of interactions in interdisciplinary spaces, particularly, the Association for the Study of Food and Society, but also due to the encouragement received from Arlene Dvila and Marion Nestle, who pushed me to disseminate my research beyond the scientific journals more commonly used in my home discipline of nutrition and public health. I am also deeply thankful to the University of North Carolina Press, the anonymous reviewers, and, specifically, Elaine Maisner for her enthusiasm and time, helping me to find and strengthen my voice in these pages.

Most importantly, this book would not have been possible without the caribeos who gifted their time and shared their life and food experiences with me, over many meals in the city. Their voices are at the center of this work, and I will be forever thankful for their openness and interest in this project. Nor would I have been able to undertake this long journey without the support of my family, in many ways inspiring the work presented in this book. I want to thank my mother, Eugenia Victoria Rivera, who has been an important part of the somewhat personal story intermingled throughout the book and responsible for the person I am today. I am thankful for my family, including my sister, Jessica; my aunts, Elby and Evelyn; my uncle and godfather, Euldaldo; my stepfather, Angel, and my mother-in-law, Norma, for their encouragement and their indulging me in ongoing discussions about food and this project throughout the years. Finally, these pages would not have come into existence without the love, care, and intellectual contributions of my better half, Omar A. Dauhajre, whose knowledge about our communitys history and culture has been essential in inspiring and moving this work forward.

Gracias.