This dissertation focuses on the dynamics of gated communities with attention to the municipality of Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. Despite the growing numbers of gated communities worldwide, research on this matter remains scarce. I argue that a “gated community consensus” has emerged in Puerto Rico. The hypothesis is that in Guaynabo, the municipality facilitates the emergence of gated communities in order to change the face of the city and reap an economic windfall. Interviews demonstrate the municipality’s commitment to facilitating the construction of new communities and lending support to older communities. Most of these gated communities respond to high end income projects, thus altering the profile of Guaynabo’s residents. This has all led to the development of Guaynabo as a commodity, Guaynabo City, suitable to contractors, the municipality, and interested buyers. The gates confer prestige in the municipality.

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Unificación: The Things That Bind Us is a collection of poetry and prose, using New York City's Spanish Harlem and Carolina, Puerto Rico as its backdrop. Each work in this collection revolves around a young man and his family, based on the real-life stories and experiences of the writer's grandfather, Luis. They are crafted with the intent of sharing aspects of Puerto Rican life both in and out of the continental United States with a diverse audience, including those who might not have encountered any elements of the Hispanic culture. Using techniques inspired by writers like Jesús Colon, Esmeralda Santiago, and Piri Thomas, each of the pieces focus on a different element of the Puerto Rican culture. The intent is to give audiences an idea of the cultural values, familial structures, and other norms typical of the Puerto Rican culture by providing glimpses into the everyday lives of the same family on the island and the mainland. The works capture their struggle to make the most of the life they've found themselves in, and emphasize one boy's growth as he attempts to find his role in the family. Overall, the goal of this work is to craft a story that can appeal to all audiences, bringing the Puerto Rican culture to life for all who encounter it.

In this thesis, I explore the following question: what is the relationship between representations of Puerto Rican identity and representations of Puerto Rican social roles in the United States and Puerto Rico? I use articles from the New York Times to analyze the discursive structure of this relationship. Drawing from a systematic random sample of 683 articles from the NYT archives from two time periods before and after the ratification of the Puerto Rican Constitution (1948 to 1952 and 1952 to 1958), I find nuanced accounts that promote a representation of Puerto Ricans as a perpetually “foreign” immigrant group, a form of “American Exceptionalism” that simultaneously criticizes U.S. colonialism and perpetuates U.S. supremacy to ultimately frame Puerto Ricans as U.S. citizens but not as authentically belonging “Americans,” and an ongoing racialization of Puerto Ricans as a group that does not fit within the traditional black/white color-line of the U.S.

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Gringa-Rican is a collection of short stories told through the lens of various female, Puerto Rican protagonists. They highlight the duality of one’s existence, when one is from neither here nor there. The stories explore ideas of dislocation, assimilation and identity, through a Puerto Rican family that moves from their home island to the United States. I was inspired to write these stories because of my own family’s pursuit of the American Dream. This thesis is, in part, a labor of love. Growing up, there were not many stories with families like mine. For this reason, when I decided I wanted to be a writer, I found myself trying to depict someone I wasn’t. I did not feel like I could truly write about my experience in the diaspora, because it did not matter. Eventually, this changed when I read books like We the Animals by Justin Torres, When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago, and The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. For the first time, I saw myself as someone with a story worthy of being written and read. This collection is the product of years of writing, drafting and editing. I have laughed and cried, worried and dreamed. Now, I send it off to the world hoping that my work inspires others. I hope that these stories serve as both mirrors and windows. I hope that these characters, these lives I’ve created, feel as real to the reader as they do to me.