My research is about Latino political participation in the Northeast, focusing on Puerto Ricans in New York and Connecticut. In particular, my work explores the role of race and ethnicity in the political process, how minority elites fashion political alliances, and the role of leadership in bridging the gap between political representation and policy responsiveness. My first book, Identity and Power: Puerto Rican Politics and the Challenge of Ethnicity. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998, explored the relationship between ethnic identity, political mobilization, and political empowerment. Currently I am working on two book projects: a political history of Puerto Ricans in New York City during the period 1965-1990 and a comparative case-study of coalition-building between African-American and Latino elites in Chicago and New York City during the administrations of Harold Washington and David Dinkins respectively. I recently completed an article on the relationship between the Congressional Black and Hispanic Caucuses which will be included in a collection about the politics of race and blackness in the Americas currently under consideration by Rutgers University Press. My most recent publications are Adiós Borinquen Querida: The Puerto Rican Diaspora, Its History and Contributions (with Edna Acosta-Belén, et al.), Albany, NY: CELAC, 2000 and "Interminority Relations in Urban Settings: Lessons from the Black-Puerto Rican Experience," in Black and Multiracial Politics in America, edited by Yvette M. Alex-Assensoh and Lawrence J. Hanks, pp. 84-112. New York: New York University Press, 2000.