CUNY DIGITAL HISTORY ARCHIVE

This January 29, 1970, letter, written by Professor Josephine Nieves, Director of the Institute for Puerto Rican Studies at Brooklyn College (BC), makes an official request to found a Department of Puerto Rican Studies at the college. The letter describes challenges and obstacles that hinder the development of a Puerto Rican Studies curriculum within the college. The letter also reveals the distinct role institutes play in CUNY as compared to departments.

This item is part of the Puerto Rican Studies at Brooklyn College (PRSBC) Collection, which covers the largely Puerto Rican-led student movement at Brooklyn College (CUNY) during the late 1960s and early 1970s that fought for the creation of the Puerto Rican Studies Department at the college. The collection includes oral history interviews with pioneering student activists, photographs of participants and their struggles, and other archival materials on the fight to create the Puerto Rican Studies Department drawn from the Archives and Special Collections library at Brooklyn College.