“Me siento como en Puerto Rico” : Puerto Rican diaspora communities’ placemaking through Urban Agri-Culture

Puerto Ricans have a long history of migrating to the U.S., historically laboring as farmworkers, a result of colonial displacement and economic restructuring. Some Puerto Ricans who migrated to the U.S. engage in Urban Agriculture, helping them maintain ties to their cultural identity by growing Puerto Rican foods and creating gardening and farming spaces that resemble the Puerto Rican landscape. While critical food and UA scholars have vastly studied the connections between placemaking and food justice through the experiences of immigrants, the Puerto Rican diaspora has been largely overlooked. Drawing from interviews and landscape analysis from field visits in Puerto Rican gardens and fincas in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, I show that 1) Puerto Ricans practice UA to remember and re-create an agrarian past through everyday practices such as growing aji dulce (sweet) peppers and communally cooking al fogón (on the fire); 2) Puerto Rican foodways reveal that notions of Puerto Rican culture are contested and complex. 3) Puerto Ricans engaging in UA utilize material cultures to create places that remind them of home. By foregrounding material cultures in gardens, often overlooked by scholars, this research suggests rethinking Urban Agriculture as Urban Agri-Culture, highlighting the interplay of material cultures and agri-food components produce the sentiment of “Me siento como en Puerto Rico.”