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Featured Books

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Junta de Planificacion.

A City is People/Una Ciudad–Un Pueblo. 1954.

Celina Romany-Siaca

Governor Roberto Sánchez – Vilella Memoirs–Puerto Rico’s Unfinished Journey

Celina Romany-Siaca has been a professor at Inter-American University in Puerto Rico and the City University of New York Law School, where she co-founded the first legal clinic in the U.S. on women’s international human rights, advancing many pioneering international projects. While at CUNY Law School, she became the first Puerto Rican Full Professor in U.S. law schools. She has also been a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and American University law schools, held the Gladstein Chair at the University of Connecticut, and the Haywood Burns Chair at CUNY. Her writings on international human rights, critical race/ethnicity, feminism, labor, and employment rights have been amply recognized.

She is currently the founder and Co-President of the Legal Coalition for Puerto Rico, the first organization managing a network of pro-bono attorneys for non-profit organizations in Puerto Rico. Her litigation in federal and state courts in Puerto Rico has set noted precedents. In 2006, she became the second woman to preside over the Bar Association of P.R., founded in 1840, and among the oldest bar associations in the world.

Engaging, objective, and illuminating political biographies are always welcome, particularly in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, where one-sided and simplistic accounts unfortunately tend to abound. That would be reason enough to celebrate the English translation of Celina Romany’s now classic biography of Roberto Sánchez-Vilella, one of Puerto Rico’s most imposing political figures. But the intense attention Puerto Rico has been receiving since the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria in 2017, along with questions about the Island’s potential path to economic growth, prosperity, and true democracy, make Romany’s book vital to anyone interested in the political and socioeconomic future of the commonwealth. The careful analysis and narration of Sánchez-Vilella’s political evolution and participation in the generation that shaped modern 20th-century Puerto Rico, as depicted in Romany’s elegantly written biography, can provide clues for those who wonder about the conditions and the leaders that might come to shape the island’s future.

Sánchez-Vilella was a key architect and participant of Puerto Rico’s modernization and of its ascendancy as a model for so-called developing countries and post-colonial territories. The able engineer served as City Manager in San Juan and Transportation Commissioner prior to serving as Secretary of State – Puerto Rico’s version of Lieutenant Governor – for 12 years and later as Puerto Rico’s second elected governor from 1965-68. Romany’s carefully documented biography takes us from Sánchez Villella’s formative years, his ascent to and fall from power in the Popular Democratic Party, and his influence as an elder political figure until his passing in 1997. There is no doubt that Romany’s work will remain Sánchez-Vilella’s definitive biography and required reading for anyone interested in understanding the formation of contemporary Puerto Rico and its politics. It is also a beautifully written book documenting the life of a true public servant in the classic sense of the term, those who are becoming increasingly scarce in our current political landscape. Romany’s book is both a scholarly tour de force and a hopeful account of the kind of leadership Puerto Rico might need to face the turmoil and despair felt by many today.

Félix V. Matos-Rodríguez
Chancellor
City University of New York