Ed Morales is an author and journalist who has written for The Nation, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, and the Guardian. He was staff writer at The Village Voice and columnist at Newsday. He is the author of Fantasy Island: Colonialism, Exploitation, and the Betrayal of Puerto Rico (Bold Type Books), Latinx: The New Force in Politics and Culture (Verso Books 2018), The Latin Beat (Da Capo Press 2003) and Living in Spanglish (St. Martins 2002). In 2019 Latinx was shortlisted for the Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding by the British Academy in London. In 2009, while a Columbia University Revson Fellow, Morales wrote and directed Whose Barrio? (2009) an award-winning documentary about the gentrification of East Harlem. The film was inspired by “Spanish Harlem on His Mind,” an essay published in The Best of the City Section of the New York Times (NYU Press 2005). Morales is also a 2022-23 Mellon Bridging the Divides Fellow at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies in New York.
Selected Works
Fantasy Island: Colonialism, Exploitation, and the Betrayal of Puerto Rico
A crucial, clear-eyed accounting of Puerto Rico’s 122 years as a colony of the US.
Since its acquisition by the US in 1898, Puerto Rico has served as a testing ground for the most aggressive and exploitative US economic, political, and social policies. The devastation that ensued finally grew impossible to ignore in 2017, in the wake of Hurricane María, as the physical destruction compounded the infrastructure collapse and trauma inflicted by the debt crisis. In Fantasy Island, Ed Morales traces how, over the years, Puerto Rico has served as a colonial satellite, a Cold War Caribbean showcase, a dumping ground for US manufactured goods, and a corporate tax shelter. He also shows how it has become a blank canvas for mercenary experiments in disaster capitalism on the frontlines of climate change, hamstrung by internal political corruption and the US federal government’s prioritization of outside financial interests.
Latinx: The New Force in American Politics and Culture
An “erudite, comprehensive” analysis of Latinx identity in the United States as it relates to American culture, society, and politics (Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, author of Racism Without Racists)
“Latinx” (pronounced “La-teen-ex”) is the gender-neutral term that covers one of the largest and fastest growing minorities in the United States, accounting for 17 percent of the country. Over 58 million Americans belong to the category, including a sizable part of the country’s working class, both foreign and native-born. Their political empowerment is altering the balance of forces in a growing number of states. And yet Latinx barely figure in America’s ongoing conversation about race and ethnicity. Remarkably, the US census does not even have a racial category for “Latino.”
Living in Spanglish: The Search for Latino Identity in America
Chicano. Cubano. Pachuco. Nuyorican. Puerto Rican. Boricua. Quisqueya. Tejano.
To be Latino in the United States in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has meant to fierce identification with roots, with forbears, with the language, art and food your people came here with. America is a patchwork of Hispanic sensibilities-from Puerto Rican nationalists in New York to more newly arrived Mexicans in the Rio Grande valley-that has so far resisted homogenization while managing to absorb much of the mainstream culture.
La isla de la fantasia: El colonialismo, la explotacion y la traicion a Puerto Rico
A dos años del huracán María, Puerto Rico aún sigue recuperándose de la destrucción física de la tormenta y el colapso de la infraestructura resultante. La devastación agravó los efectos dañinos de más de un siglo causados por la explotación de Estados Unidos con sus políticas económicas, sociales y de asuntos políticos, incluido el trauma infligido por su crisis de deuda de 72 mil millones de dólares.
En La isla de la fantasía, el periodista Ed Morales describe cómo, a lo largo de los años, Puerto Rico ha servido como un satélite colonial, una vitrina de la Guerra Fría del Caribe, un vertedero de productos manufacturados en Estados Unidos y un refugio fiscal corporativo. Emprendiendo al lector en un viaje ida y vuelta de San Juan a la ciudad de Nueva York, La isla de la fantasía es un relato crucial y claro de los 122 años de Puerto Rico como colonia de los Estados Unidos.
The Latin Beat: The Rhythms and Roots of Latin Music, from Bossa Nova to Salsa and Beyond
The Latin explosion of Marc Anthony, Ricky Martin, and the Buena Vista Social Club may look like it came out of nowhere, but the incredible variety of Latin music has been transforming the United States since the turn of the century, when Caribbean beats turned New Orleans music into jazz. In fact, we wouldn’t have any of our popular music without it: Imagine pop sans the mambos of Perez Prado and Tito Puente, the garage rock of Richie Valens, or even the glitzy croon of Julio Iglesias, not to mention the psychedelia of Santana and Los Lobos and the underground cult grooves of newcomers like Bebel Gilberto. The Latin Beat outlines the musical styles of each country, then traces each form as it migrates north. Morales travels from the Latin ballad to bossa nova to Latin jazz, chronicles the development of the samba in Brazil and salsa in New York, explores the connection between the mambo craze of the 1950’s with the Cuban craze of today, and uncovers the hidden history of Latinos in rock and hip hop. The Latin Beat is the only book that explores where the music has come from and celebrates all of the directions it is going.
For More Information on Ed Morales, his career and additional work please visit EdMorales.net
