Introduction

1. The Bomberos and Puerto Rican Identity Meaning-Making
The Bomberos: Personal Histories
Puerto Rican Identity and Belonging

2. Bomba Fashion Negotiations via Time, Place, and Space
Bomba Island Fashions Origin Stories on the Island: Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries
Bomba Exclusion, Persecution, and Persistence Period: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
From Batey to the Stage: Bomba as Folklorized Practice in the Twentieth Century
From the Stage Back to the Community: Bombazo Era in the Late Twentieth Century
Bomba's Resurgence: Contemporary Happenings in the Twenty First Century

3. The Marketplace of Bomba Fashions: Making, Consuming, and Authenticity
Early Dressmaking Stories and Histories
Consumption and Buying from Others
Mass Production and Meaning Making
Inherited Gifts
Consuming Authenticity Tensions

4. Embodying Bomba Fashions as Forms of Connectedness and Visual Art
Connectedness to a Deeper Sense of Self and Personal Agency
Connectedness to Joy and Freedom
Connectedness to Family Members
Connectedness to Puerto Rican Histories, Bomba Histories, and Puerto Rican Identities
The Bomba Skirt as a Canvas of Expression
Music, Not the Clothing, Is the Heart of Bomba
Bringing Bomba Fashion into the Bombero Daily Style
Tensions and Fluidity Between Bomba as Costume and Everyday Wear

5. Bomba Ways of Knowing
The Importance of Oral Traditions and the Challenge of Documentation and Lost Knowledge
The Importance of Learning and Teaching Others
The Desire to Seek Knowledge: Understanding Bomba through Independent Research
Knowledge Transmission via Family Members and Longtime Bomba Practitioners
Acquiring Knowledge of Bomba: The Influence of the Escuela de Bomba y Plena Rafael Cepeda Atiles
Seamstresses and Dressmakers as Intergeneration Knowledge Sharers

Conclusion
Appendix
Amanda Ortiz-Pellot Positionality Reflection
Kelly Reddy-Best Positionality Reflection
Methodology
Limitations
Interview Schedule in English
Programa de Entrevista