In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

20  C H A P T E R 2 C H A P T E R 2 Gender Awareness across Generations The colonial history of Puerto Rico and the history of birth control on the island have influenced the lives of three generations of women in my study. Despite individual variations, each generation shares certain common orientations that stem from the intersection of their gender, race, age, and class, and are influenced by the era in which they grew up, as well as the sociopolitical environment. Thus, before I move on to the stories of individual families , I would like to consider the common experiences faced by the women of each generation. My study focuses on Puerto Rican women living in New York City, whom I will term, for heuristic purposes, the first, second, and third generations. These are the mothers, daughters, and granddaughters in the households I followed for twenty-five years. The mothers (first generation) were born 1914–1922. The daughters (second generation) were born 1934–1952. The granddaughters (third generation) were born 1959–1981. The first generation of women share experiences of emigrating from agrarian communities in Puerto Rico to industrial New York City in search of work. Women in the second generation were mostly born in New York. They lived through an era of rapid social change as the city shifted from an industrial to a service economy, and the civil rights movement and the second wave of feminism challenged Americans to think about race and gender in new ways. The third generation women grew up in a postindustrial and post–civil rights city, facing gentrification and the challenges of a new economic and social structure. My main concern in this chapter is to consider the impact of these significant social, economic, and political changes on women’s gender awareness. The choices women make (or do not make) about reproduction, fertility control, and parenting are linked with their understanding of themselves as women, gender awareness across gener ations 21 and with their larger understanding of gender roles and values, as well as their social circumstances. Tradition and Immigration The women I have termed “first generation” grew up in preindustrial, agricultural Puerto Rico, where they were raised in wooden shacks with no running water or electricity. Their stories of life on the island were generally stories of poverty. When they were children, they were so poor that they only had one pair of shoes. To preserve them they only wore them during school and in church. Doña Rosario explained, “We went to school barefooted and put our shoes on only when we were in school. We had one pair of shoes, which we wore on Sundays to go to church. When the service was over, we would take off our shoes at the church door. Everyone took his or her shoes off, even the elders.” At the time the first generation women were growing up, in the 1920s and 1930s, Puerto Rico was undergoing economic changes under a colonial regime. The island underwent a transition from subsistence to a monocrop economy that resulted in widespread displacement and impoverishment of the rural population . Additionally, because these working-class women grew up with such few amenities and work was so labor intensive, physically they worked harder than any subsequent generation of Puerto Rican women. The combination of hard work, poor living conditions, and tropical island diseases adversely affected their health and the health of their children. Doña Rosario explained, “I was born in Puerto Rico in 1917. There was no electric light, and to cook we had to fetch water from the river. We had to cook with firewood. We went to the hills to find the wood and cut it down. The wash had to be done in the river. We would get up at five in the morning and sometimes we would not go to bed till twelve at night.” In Puerto Rican agricultural society, children had economic value. Children played an important role in domestic labor and agricultural production. Because domestic work was so labor intensive, women needed help around the house and young girls often filled the role of surrogate mother. Depending on their age, girls were required to help with the household chores and care for the younger children. Doña Rosario continued, When I was growing up children worked plenty. After going to school kids came home to work: to plant bananas, yams, and cut firewood. We pressed clothes with huge...

Share