Hailed as a ‘masterpiece’ in
NewsWeek
magazine by Yale art historian Robert Ferris Thompson, the life history of Benjy Lopez is now available in an expanded edition which includes Benjy Lopez’ return and life in Puerto Rico as a successful businessman. This engaging autobiographical account is a pioneering vision exposing the half-truth that the typical experience of the ordinary Puerto Rican, particularly of the Puerto Rican transposed to New York City, is exclusively defined by privation, fear, prejudice, and culture shock. In so doing, Barry B. Levine successfully combats the myth of the victimized immigrant, proposing a picaresque sociology that acknowledges an actor’s agency even under the most difficult circumstances.