Depictions of Nuyoricans-or Puerto Ricans from New York-in American popular culture have long been sites of tense encounters. Puerto Ricans became one of the most recognizable Latino groups in New York City ever since the 1950s when migration from the island to the continental United States exploded. Puerto Ricans enriched the city's cultural life in numerous ways. They actively participated in the Mambo and Salsa booms in the 1950s and 1970s, and they founded important cultural institutions like the Nuyorican Poets Café and El Museo del Barrio. Despite these enduring contributions, the prevailing image of Puerto Ricans in the media has been stereotypical. Films such as West Side Story (1961) and Fort Apache, the Bronx (1981) portrayed Puerto Ricans as criminals and gang members. Community protests against Fort Apache, the Bronx were especially intense, as activists from the South Bronx region of New York cried out against the image of Puerto Ricans and African Americans as instigators of social decay.

Untitled portrait photographs by Sophie Rivera

It was during this period of struggle that Sophie Rivera decided to document New York City's Puerto Rican community through photography. Her two untitled photographic portraits in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum feature Puerto Ricans who traversed the city. Rivera sought out her subjects in an unusual way. Standing outside of her building, she asked passersby if they were Puerto Rican. If they answered yes, she invited them to her studio and photographed them against a wood-paneled background. She produced at least 50 black and white portraits, although only 14 survived a fire in her studio.

Rivera's portraits challenge stereotypes of Nuyoricans not by offering a positive representation of Puerto Rican life in New York but by letting the individuality of everyday people speak for themselves. Unlike traditional portraits, which often identify sitters by name, Rivera's subjects remain anonymous, even to her. By visually revealing her subjects in great detail and directness, yet leaving them un-named, Rivera allows viewers to reach their own conclusions about who these individuals are and what they represent.