In The Politics of Care Work, Emma Amador tells the story of Puerto Rican women’s involvement in political activism for social and economic justice in Puerto Rico and the United States throughout the twentieth century. Amador focuses on the experiences and contributions of Puerto Rican social workers, care workers, and caregivers who fought for the compensation of reproductive labor in society and the establishment of social welfare programs. These activists believed conflicts over social reproduction and care work were themselves high-stakes class struggles for women, migrants, and people of color. In Puerto Rico, they organized for women’s rights, socialism, labor standards, and Puerto Rican independence. They continued this work in the United States by advocating for migrant rights, participating in the civil rights movement, and joining Puerto Rican-led social movements. Amador shows how their relentless efforts gradually shifted the field of social work toward social justice and community-centered activism. The profound and enduring impact of their efforts on Puerto Rican communities underscores the crucial role of Puerto Rican women’s caregiving labor and activism in building and sustaining migrant communities.

Attending to the wisdom that emerges through care work, Practice Dialogues uplifts the complexity, creativity, and interconnection of care across fields of endeavor. Written by a collective of practitioners, Practice Dialogues calls readers to learn from, not simply about, care work and those dedicated to it. Recognizing the need to understand care work as practice that furthers people’s survival and thriving, this volume advances a method of research rooted in radical presence, mutual listening, and collaborative writing. Centering care work as and through co-authorship, the essays spotlight fields including medicine, somatic practice, teaching and school leadership, martial arts, organizing, the arts, and family caregiving. In the framing chapters, Practice Dialogues draws on scholarship from education, postcolonial cultural studies, Black studies, Indigenous studies, social work, trauma studies, and critical feminist studies. The volume creates an exchange among scholarship, questions of research methodology, and the ecosystems of care work, pushing the limits of what is possible within and beyond conventional boundaries.