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Archives of the Puerto Rican Diaspora

About This Site

The Archives of the Puerto Rican Diaspora is the only archival repository nationwide exclusively devoted to documenting Puerto Rican communities throughout the United States. This site contains finding aids or collection guides for our over 300 collections of personal papers and organizational records. Finding aids describe the creation, content, and arrangement of archival material, allowing users to identify and request materials relevant to their research. Use this site to browse, search and explore Centro’s primary source holdings.

Access to this material is available by appointment only in the Centro Library & Archives Reading Room at the Hunter College Silberman School of Social Work located in East Harlem, New York City. Please contact us at centro.library@hunter.cuny.edu or 212-396-7882 if you have any questions or to make an appointment.

Additional Resources

Digitized material from Centro’s archival collections can be found in the Digital Collections Portal.

Books in the Centro Library are available to search through the CUNY library catalog.
Requests for digital images of or permissions to use material from the Archives of the Puerto Rican Diaspora can be found in our Reproduction Services.
For more information and resources available visit the Centro Library and Archives.

Search Centro's archival holdings:




About the Collections

Our collections consist of personal papers from prominent Puerto Rican artists, elected officials, social activists, writers, as well as the records of community-based organizations. Our largest collection, the Offices of the Government of Puerto Rico in the United States (OGPRUS) Records, measures approximately 2,900 cubic feet and contains an extraordinary amount of information regarding Puerto Rican migrants and the government institutions established to assist them. The collections date from the 1890s to the present, and document Puerto Rican communities in the Northeast, Midwest, Florida, California and Hawaii.