I am a historian of Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean and Latinos in the US and I specialize in peasant and working-class history, revolutions, and ethnicity and race.
I was born at the University of Chicago Hospital in 1959, while my mother, Esther Santiago, studied anthropology. I grew up in Puerto Rico and graduated from the Escuela Secundaria de la Universidad de Puerto Rico in 1977.
I received my B.A. from Princeton University in 1981 and soon after received an M.A. in Latin American and Caribbean Studies from New York University. My Ph.D. is. from the University of Chicago in 1992 where I trained as a Mexicanist and began my career as a historian of El Salvador.
Before my Ph.D. I worked in kitchens, libraries, classrooms, and as a research assistant. After receiving my Ph.D. I worked at the New School for Social Research and then at the College of the Holy Cross, where I first gained tenure in 1999. Since 2005 I have worked as a Professor in the Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies and the Department of History at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. At Rutgers I direct the Center for Latin American Studies since 2021.
My first book, An Agrarian Republic: Commercial Agriculture and the Politics of Peasant Communities in El Salvador, 1823-1914 (Pittsburgh UP 1999) traces the social, economic and political history of El Salvador during the nineteenth century from the perspective of its regions, municipalities and peasant communities. With Jeffrey Gould (Indiana University) I continued work on El Salvador with To Rise in Darkness: Revolution, Repression, and Memory in El Salvador, 1920–1932 (Duke UP 2008).
I also co-edited two books on Caribbean and Central American studies (Identity and Struggle at the Margins of the Nation-State: The Laboring Peoples of Central America and the Hispanic Caribbean and Landscapes of Struggle Politics, Society, and Community in El Salvado). Later I began work on a regional history of the coffee-producing peasantry in Western Mexico in the late nineteenth century.
During the last twelve years my work has turned towards the United States and the Caribbean. Most recently I co-authored with Lorrin Thomas (Rutgers University, Camden) a book that examines the history of Puerto Rican struggles for empowerment in the US since the 1950s (Rethinking the Struggle for Puerto Rican Rights, Routledge).
My work on the history of Puerto Ricans in New York City is ongoing. The first book, forthcoming with the University of North Carolina Press, is a history of Puerto Rican New Yorkers and the first second generation up to 1950. A second volume follows Puerto Rican working class communities from the late 1940s to New York City’s 1970s crisis.
With Ulla Berg (Rutgers, New Brunswick) I also coedited the first ever volume on Latinos in New Jersey, forthcoming with Rutgers University Press.
At Rutgers I direct the Center for Latin American Studies, co-coordinate the Latino Studies Research Initiative with Kathleen Lopez. I also coordinate the Rutgers Working Group on the History of Latinos and Puerto Ricans in the US. I have served in different editorial, executive and advisory boards, and served as chair of the Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies for seven years.
I live in Harlem, New York City and I spend a lot of time in Santurce, Puerto Rico. I am married to Haydee Cecilia Ponte.