Antonio Sotomayor, Latin American and Caribbean Studies Librarian and Associate Professor at the University of Illinois Library, published his new book Familia y poder en Puerto Rico: los Sotomayor y sus parentelas entre los siglos XVI al XVIII, in October 2025 with Editorial Luscinia C.E.
Familia y poder en Puerto Rico employs an academic genealogy approach to studying different historical processes of early Spanish-Puerto Rican society, backed by a rigorous theoretical framework and a plethora of archival documentation. Sotomayor was invited to present his book at the Primer Congreso Internacional Puerto Rico y España, at the Universidad de Puerto Rico en Bayamón which sought to highlight the historical and cultural connections between Puerto Rico and Spain.
“This book is more than the genealogy of my Sotomayor ancestors. My interest is in politics and nuances of power as seen through the study of families. I’ve been interested in this field since my doctoral work at the University of Chicago (one of my oral examinations there was on Colonial Latin American history) and have been developing an extensive collection of primary and secondary sources since then. I am very grateful to the Library’s Research and Publication Committee for having funded a research trip and for editorial expenses in the production of this book. I hope this book serves as a model for the possibilities of Puerto Rican academic genealogy studies,” said Sotomayor.
After receiving his Ph.D. in Latin American and Caribbean History from the University of Chicago in 2012, Sotomayor joined the faculty at the University of Illinois Library. He also holds faculty appointments in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese and the Department of History. His book, The Sovereign Colony: Olympic Sport, National Identity, and International Politics in Puerto Rico won the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials 2017 José Toribio Medina Book Award, and was published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2016. In 2020, he co-edited with Cesar R. Torres Olimpismo: The Olympic Movement in the Making of Latin America and the Caribbean, which was a finalist for the 2021 Best Anthology Award from the North American Society for Sport History. His work appears in journals such as The Latin Americanist, Hispania Nova, The Americas, Caribbean Studies, and The International Journal of the History of Sport, among others.
