Nuyorican Movement
Encyclopedia
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Giannina Braschi  Nuyorican Poets Café Nuyorican Poets Café The Nuyorican Poets Café is a non-profit organization in Alphabet City, Manhattan. It is a bastion of the Nuyorican art movement in New York City, USA, and has become a forum for poetry, music, hip hop, video, visual arts, comedy and theatre.-History:... |
The Nuyorican Movement is a cultural and intellectual movement involving poets, writers, musicians and artists who are Puerto Rican
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
or of Puerto Rican descent, who live in or near New York City, and either call themselves or are known as Nuyorican
Nuyorican
Nuyorican is a portmanteau of the terms "New York" and "Puerto Rican" and refers to the members or culture of the Puerto Rican diaspora located in or around New York State especially the New York City metropolitan area, or of their descendants...
s. It originated in the late 1960s and early 1970s in neighborhoods such as Loisaida
Loisaida
Loisaida is a term derived from the Latino pronunciation of "Lower East Side", a neighborhood in Manhattan, New York City. The term was originally coined by poet/activist Bittman "Bimbo" Rivas in his 1974 poem "Loisaida"...
, East Harlem and the South Bronx
South Bronx
The South Bronx is an area of the New York City borough of The Bronx. The neighborhoods of Tremont, University Heights, Highbridge, Morrisania, Soundview, Hunts Point, and Castle Hill are sometimes considered part of the South Bronx....
as a means to validate Puerto Rican experience in the United States, particularly for poor and working class people who suffered from marginalization, ostracism, and discrimination. The term Nuyorican was originally used as an insult until leading artists such as Miguel Algarín
Miguel Algarín
Miguel Algarín , is a Puerto Rican poet, writer, co-founder of the Nuyorican Poets Café, and retired Rutgers University professor of English.-Early years:...
reclaimed it and transformed its meaning. Key cultural organizations such as the Nuyorican Poets Café
Nuyorican Poets Café
The Nuyorican Poets Café is a non-profit organization in Alphabet City, Manhattan. It is a bastion of the Nuyorican art movement in New York City, USA, and has become a forum for poetry, music, hip hop, video, visual arts, comedy and theatre.-History:...
, the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, and El Museo del Barrio
El Museo del Barrio
El Museo del Barrio, New York’s leading Latino visual arts cultural institution, is located in the East Harlem neighborhood of New York City, United States, also known as El Barrio. The museum welcomes visitors of all backgrounds to discover the artistic landscape of the Latino, Caribbean, and...
are the result of this movement. Its political counterparts in 1970s New York included the Young Lords
Young Lords
The Young Lords, later Young Lords Organization and in New York , Young Lords Party, was a Puerto Rican nationalist group in several United States cities, notably New York City and Chicago.-Founding:...
.
Literature and poetry
Some of the best known Nuyorican writers and poets who have written about their experiences of being a Puerto Rican in New York and who have been responsible for the Nuyorican Movement, directly or indirectly, are:- Abraham RodriguezAbraham RodriguezAbraham Rodriguez Jr. is a Puerto Rican novelist and short story author who writes in English about the experience of Latinos in the United States. Although he has been living in Germany since the mid-90s, Rodriguez continues to set his stories in the South Bronx...
- Bonafide Rojas, author of Pelo Bueno: A Day In The Life Of A Nuyorican Poet
- Bimbo Rivas
- Esmeralda SantiagoEsmeralda SantiagoEsmeralda Santiago is a Puerto Rican author and former actress known for her novels and memoirs.-Early life:Santiago was born on 17 May 1948 in the San Juan district of Villa Palmeras, Santurce, Puerto Rico. In 1961, she came to the continental United States when she was thirteen years old, the...
, author of When I Was Puerto Rican - Felipe LucianoFelipe LucianoFelipe Luciano is an American poet, community activist, journalist, media personality, and politician. He is of Puerto Rican heritage....
- Giannina BraschiGiannina BraschiGiannina Braschi is a Puerto Rican writer. She is credited with writing the first Spanglish novel YO-YO BOING! and the poetry trilogy Empire of Dreams , which chronicles the Latin American immigrant's experiences in the United States...
, poet and novelist, author of Yo-Yo Boing! - Jaime Carrero
- Jesús ColónJesús ColónJesús Colón was a Puerto Rican writer known as the Father of the Nuyorican Movement.-Early years:Colón was born in Cayey, Puerto Rico after the Spanish-American War when the American Tobacco Company gained control of most of the tobacco producing land in Puerto Rico. His father was a baker and his...
, "Father of the Nuyorican Movement" and author of A Puerto Rican in New York - Jesús Papoleto Meléndez
- Jorge Brandon aka El Coco que Habla
- José Angel Figueroa
- Louis Reyes Rivera
- Lucky Cienfuegos
- Luz María UmpierreLuz María UmpierreLuz María Umpierre-Herrera is a Puerto Rican poet, scholar, and human rights activist who lives in the United States. She is also known as Luzma Umpierre. She is widely recognized for her open exploration of her lesbianism, immigrant experience, and bilingualism, and for her poetic exchange with...
- Miguel AlgarínMiguel AlgarínMiguel Algarín , is a Puerto Rican poet, writer, co-founder of the Nuyorican Poets Café, and retired Rutgers University professor of English.-Early years:...
- Miguel PiñeroMiguel PiñeroMiguel Piñero was a Puerto Rican playwright, actor, and co-founder of the Nuyorican Poets Café. He was a leading member of the Nuyorican literary movement.-Early years:...
- Nancy MercadoNancy MercadoNancy Mercado is a poet, editor and educator whose work focuses on environmental issues, on various kinds of injustice and on the Puerto Rican and Latino experience in the United States...
, author of It Concerns the Madness. She also served as an editor for the renown publication, Long Shot for eleven years. - Nicholasa MohrNicholasa MohrNicholasa Mohr is one of the best known Nuyorican writers. Her works tell of growing up in the Puerto Rican communities of the Bronx and El Barrio and of the difficulties Puerto Rican women face in the United States.- Life and career :...
- Pedro PietriPedro PietriPedro Pietri , was a Nuyorican poet and playwright who co-founded the Nuyorican Poets Café. He was the poet laureate of the Nuyorican Movement.-Early years :...
- Piri ThomasPiri ThomasPiri Thomas was a writer and poet whose autobiography Down These Mean Streets became a best-seller.-Early years:...
, author of Down These Mean StreetsDown These Mean StreetsDown These Mean Streets is the autobiography of Piri Thomas, a Latino of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent who grew up in El Barrio , a section of Harlem that has a large Puerto Rican population... - Sandra María EstevesSandra María EstevesSandra María Esteves is an American poet, playwright, and graphic artist. She was born and raised in the Bronx, New York, and is one of the founders of the Nuyorican poetry movement. She has published numerous collections of poetry and has conducted literary programs at organizations including the...
- Shaggy FloresShaggy Flores"Shaggy Flores" is a Nuyorican poet, writer and African Diaspora scholar who forms part of the Nuyorical literary movement.-Early years:...
, author of Sancocho: A Book of Nuyorican Poetry - Tato LavieraTato LavieraTato Laviera is a Nuyorican poet. Born in Puerto Rico, he moved to New York City with his family in 1960.Laviera's poetry, which is written sometimes in Spanish, sometimes in English, more often in Spanglish, addresses language, cultural identity, race, and memory, particularly as it affects the...
- Urayoán Noel
- Victor Hernández CruzVictor Hernández CruzVictor Hernández Cruz is a Puerto Rican poet.-Life:He moved to New York in 1954. He began writing at fifteen, and published his first collections of poetry in the late 1960s....
The Nuyorican Poets Café, a non-profit organization
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
in Alphabet City, Manhattan
Alphabet City, Manhattan
Alphabet City is a neighborhood located within the Lower East Side and East Village in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is also known as Loisaida, a Spanglish adaptation of 'Lower East Side'. Its name comes from Avenues A, B, C, and D, the only avenues in Manhattan to have single-letter...
, founded by Pedro Pietri, Miguel Piñero and Miguel Algarín, is a bastion of the Nuyorican Movement. Edwin Torres
Edwin Torres (poet)
Edwin Torres is a "Nuyorican" poet.-Early years:Torres's parents moved from Puerto Rico and settled in the borough of The Bronx in New York City. His father died when he was young and he was then raised by his mother and her brother Martin. Martin provided comfort and family support...
, a well-known Nuyorican poet, is a regular at the cafe. Other modern day notable Nuyorican poets include Willie Perdomo
Willie Perdomo
-Overview:Willie Perdomo is a prize-winning Nuyorican poet and children's book author. He is the author of Where a Nickel Costs a Dime , Postcards of El Barrio , and Smoking Lovely , which received a PEN American Center Beyond Margins Award...
, Mariposa (María Teresa Fernández), Lemon Andersen
Lemon (poet)
Lemon, born Andrew Andersen was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York City.Lemon is a critically acclaimed poet, spokenword artist, and actor. As a poet he has the most aired episodes on HBO's Def Poetry, eight times in six seasons, and was an original cast member of the TONY Award winning Russell...
, Caridad de la Luz
Caridad de la Luz
Caridad De la Luz , a.k.a. "La Bruja" , is a poet, actress and activist.-Early years:De la Luz, whose parents moved to New York City from Puerto Rico, was born and raised in the South Bronx. There she also received her primary and secondary education...
(La Bruja) and Emanuel Xavier
Emanuel Xavier
In 2005, Suspect Thoughts Press published Bullets & Butterflies: queer spoken word poetry, a collection Emanuel Xavier edited. The anthology featured the work of thirteen openly queer spoken word artists and new work by the editor himself including: "Legendary", "Outside" and "A Simple Poem." The...
. Fairly new poets making their mark in the Nuyorican poetry community are Jani Rosado (Jani Bomba Rose of musingsandscribbles.com), Roberto Plena Irizarry (BombaPlena on YouTube) and Angelique Imani Rodriguez (penhittingpaper.com). Charlie Vázquez
Charlie Vázquez
Charlie Vázquez is a Bronx born-and-raised, self-identified queer American artist, writer, and musician of Cuban and Puerto Rican descent. He is also the editor of Fireking Press, where he has published a novel and a book of short stories. His fiction, erotica and essays have appeared in a number...
has also contributed to this movement, particularly as the host of the Hispanic Panic series inaugurated in 2008.
Music
Nuyorican music became popular in the 1960s with the recordings of Tito PuenteTito Puente
Tito Puente, , born Ernesto Antonio Puente, was a Latin jazz and Salsa musician. The son of native Puerto Ricans Ernest and Ercilia Puente, of Spanish Harlem in New York City, Puente is often credited as "El Rey de los Timbales" and "The King of Latin Music"...
's "Oye Como Va
Oye Como Va
"Oye Como Va" is a song written by Latin jazz and mambo musician Tito Puente in 1963 and popularized by Santana's rendition of the song in 1970 on their album Abraxas, helping to catapult Santana into stardom with the song reaching #13 on the Billboard Top 100. The song also reached #11 on...
" and Ray Barretto
Ray Barretto
Ray Barretto was a Grammy Award-winning Puerto Rican jazz musician.-Early years:Barretto was born in New York City of Puerto Rican descent...
's "El Watusi" and incorporated Spanglish
Spanglish
.Spanglish refers to the blend of Spanish and English, in the speech of people who speak parts of two languages, or whose normal language is different from that of the country where they live. The Hispanic population of the United States and the British population in Argentina use varieties of...
lyrics.
Latin bands who had formerly played the imported styles of cha-cha-cha
Cha-cha-cha (music)
The Cha-cha-chá is a style of Cuban music. It is popular dance music which developed from the danzón in the early 1950s.- Origin :As a dance music genre, cha-cha-chá is unusual in that its creation can be attributed to a single composer, Enrique Jorrín, then violinist and songwriter with the...
or charanga
Charanga
Charanga is a term given to traditional ensembles of Cuban dance music. They made Cuban dance music popular in the 1940s and their music consisted of heavily son-influenced material, performed on European instruments such as violin and flute by a Charanga orchestra....
began to develop their own unique Nuyorican music style by adding flutes and violins to their orchestras. This new style came to be known as the Latin boogaloo
Boogaloo
Boogaloo or bugalú is a genre of Latin music and dance that was popular in the United States in the 1960s. Boogaloo originated in New York City among teenage Cubans, Puerto Ricans and other groups. The style was a fusion of popular African American R&B and soul with mambo and son montuno...
. Some of the musicians who helped develop this unique music were Joe Cuba
Joe Cuba
Joe "Sonny" Cuba was a Puerto Rican musician who was considered to be the "Father of Latin Boogaloo".-Early years:...
with "Bang Bang", Richie Ray
Richie Ray
Ricardo "Richie" Ray is a virtuoso pianist, singer, music arranger, composer and religious minister known for his success beginning in 1965 as part of the duo Richie Ray & Bobby Cruz...
and Bobby Cruz
Bobby Cruz
Bobby Cruz is a salsa singer and religious minister. He is well known for his success beginning in 1965 as part of the duo Richie Ray & Bobby Cruz. His seminal professional pairing with Richie Ray is one of the longest-lived partnerships in Latino music, lasting over 45 years...
with "Mr. Trumpet Man", and the brothers Charlie
Charlie Palmieri
Charlie Palmieri was a renowned Bandleader and musical director of salsa music. He was known as "The Giant of the Keyboards".-Early years:...
and Eddie Palmieri
Eddie Palmieri
Eddie Palmieri , is a Grammy Award winning Puerto Rican pianist, bandleader and musician, best known for combining jazz piano and instrumental solos with Latin rhythms.-Early years:...
. Subsequently, Nuyorican music has evolved into Latin rap
Latin rap
Latin rap is not a homogeneous musical style but rather a term that covers all Hip-Hop music recorded by artists of Latino origin.-Early Latinos in hip hop music:...
, freestyle music
Freestyle music
Freestyle or Latin freestyle, sometimes referred to as Latin hip hop, is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in the early 1980s. Mostly popular during the mid 80s to the early 90s...
, rap
Rapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
, salsa
Salsa music
Salsa music is a genre of music, generally defined as a modern style of playing Cuban Son, Son Montuno, and Guaracha with touches from other genres of music...
, and reggaeton
Reggaeton
Reggaeton is a form of Puerto Rican and Latin American urban and Caribbean music. After its mainstream exposure in 2004, it spread to North American, European and Asian audiences. Reggaeton originated in Puerto Rico but is also has roots from Reggae en Español from Panama and Puerto Rico and...
.
The development of the Nuyorican music can be seen in salsa and hip hop music. Musician and singer Willie Colón
Willie Colón
William Anthony Colón is a Nuyorican salsa musician. Primarily a trombonist, Colón also sings, writes, produces and acts. He is also involved in municipal politics in New York City.-Early years:...
shows this diaspora in his salsa music by blending the sounds of the trombone, an instrument popular in the New York urban scene, and the cuatro, an instrument native to Puerto Rico and prevalent in salsa music. Furthermore, many salsa songs address this diaspora and relationship between the homeland, in this case Puerto Rico, and the migrant community, New York City. Some see the positives and negatives in this exchange, but often the homeland questions the cultural authenticity of the migrants. In salsa music, the same occurs. The Puerto Ricans question the validity and authenticity of the music. Today, salsa music has expanded to incorporate the sounds of Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, and other Latin American countries, creating more of a salsa fusion. In addition, with the second and third generations of Nuyoricans, the new debated and diasporic sound is hip hop. With hip hop, Nuyoricans gave back to Puerto Rico with rappers like Vico C and Big Pun, who created music that people in both New York and Puerto Rico could relate to and identify with. Other notable Puerto Ricans who made contributions to hip-hop were Dj Disco Wiz, Prince Whipper Whip, Dj Charlie Chase, Tony Touch, Tego Calderon, Fat Joe, Jim Jones, N.O.R.E, Joel Ortiz, and Lloyd Banks (Puerto Rican Mother). Currently groups like Circa '95 (PattyDukes & RephStar) are continuing the traditions as torchbearers of the Nuyorican Hip-Hop movement. Thus the musical relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico has become a circular exchange and blended fusion, as embodied in the name Nuyorican.
Playwrights and theater companies
Spanish-language Puerto Rican writers such as René MarquésRené Marques
René Marqués was a renowned Puerto Rican short story writer and playwright.-Early years:Marqués was born, raised and educated in the city of Arecibo...
who wrote about the immigrant experience can be considered as antecedents of Nuyorican movement. Marqués's best-known play The Oxcart (La Carreta) traces the life of a Puerto Rican family who moved from the countryside to San Juan
San Juan, Puerto Rico
San Juan , officially Municipio de la Ciudad Capital San Juan Bautista , is the capital and most populous municipality in Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 395,326 making it the 46th-largest city under the jurisdiction of...
and then to New York, only to realize that they would rather live a poor life in Puerto Rico than face discrimination in the United States. Puerto Rican actress Míriam Colón founded the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre in 1967 precisely after a successful run of The Oxcart. Her company gives young actors the opportunity to participate in its productions. Some of PRTT's productions, such as Edward Gallardo's Simpson Street concern life in a New York's ghetto
Ghetto
A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...
s. Other theater companies include Pregones Theater, established in 1979 in the Bronx
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
and currently directed by Rosalba Rolón, Alvan Colón-Lespier, and Jorge Merced
Jorge Merced
Jorge B. Merced is a New York-based Puerto Rican actor, theatre director, and gay activist. He is associate artistic director of Pregones Theater, a bilingual Puerto Rican/Latino theater company located near Hostos Community College in the Bronx, New York City...
.
Playwrights who pioneered the Nuyorican movement include Miguel Piñero, Jesús Papoleto Meléndez, Pedro Pietri, and Tato Laviera, and now include younger artists such as Migdalia Cruz, Edwin Sánchez and Lin-Manuel Miranda. Piñero became an acclaimed playwright with Short Eyes
Short Eyes (play)
Short Eyes is a 1974 drama written by playwright Miguel Piñero. The play premiered off-Broadway at the Joseph Papp Public Theater on 28 February 1974, and transferred after 54 performances to the Vivian Beaumont Theatre on Broadway on 23 May 1974...
, a drama about prison life which received a Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
nomination and won an Obie Award
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
. Judge Edwin Torres
Edwin Torres (judge)
-Early years:Both of Torres' parents emigrated from Jayuya, Puerto Rico and settled in the barrio in Manhattan's Spanish Harlem where Torres was born. Growing up in poverty, Torres graduated from Stuyvesant High School. From there he attended City College of the City University of New York,...
wrote Carlito's Way
Carlito's Way
Carlito's Way is a 1993 crime film directed by Brian De Palma, based on the novels Carlito's Way and After Hours by Judge Edwin Torres. The film adaptation was scripted by David Koepp. It stars Al Pacino, Sean Penn, Penelope Ann Miller, Luis Guzman, John Leguizamo, Jorge Porcel, Joseph Siravo, and...
, the saga of a Puerto Rican drug dealer which eventually became a Hollywood film. Lin-Manuel Miranda is a Tony-Award winning actor and playwright best known for the musical In the Heights
In the Heights
In the Heights is a musical with music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda and a book by Quiara Alegría Hudes. The story explores three days in the characters' lives in the New York City Dominican-American neighborhood of Washington Heights....
.
Currently, spaces such as B.A.A.D. (the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance), established in 1998 by the dancer and choreographer Arthur Aviles
Arthur Aviles
Arthur Aviles is an American Bessie Award-winning dancer and choreographer of Puerto Rican descent. Aviles was born in Queens, New York, and raised in Long Island and the Bronx. He graduated from Bard College, a liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. After graduating from Bard, he...
and the writer Charles Rice-González in the Hunts Point
Hunts Point, Bronx
Hunts Point is a low-income neighborhood located on a peninsula in the South Bronx in New York City. It is the location of one of the largest food distribution facilities in the world. The neighborhood is part of Bronx Community Board 2. Its boundaries are the Bruckner Expressway to the west and...
neighborhood of the Bronx, provide numerous Nuyorican, Latina/o, and queer of color artists and writers with a space to present and develop their work. Many additional groups use the two theaters at the Clemente Soto Vélez
Clemente Soto Vélez
Clemente Soto Vélez was a Puerto Rican nationalist, poet, journalist and activist who mentored many generations of artists in Puerto Rico and New York City...
Cultural Center in Loisaida for their events.
Visual arts
The Nuyorican Movement has always included a strong visual arts component, including arts education. Pioneer Raphael Montañez Ortiz established El Museo del Barrio in 1969 as a way to promote Nuyorican art. Painters and print makers such as Rafael TufiñoRafael Tufiño
Rafael Tufiño Figueroa was a Puerto Rican painter, printmaker and cultural figure in Puerto Rico, known locally as the "Painter of the People"...
, Fernando Salicrup, Marcos Dimas, and Nitza Tufiño established organizations such as Taller Boricua. Writers and poets such as Sandra María Esteves and Nicholasa Mohr alternated and complemented their prose and lyrical compositions with visual images on paper. At other times, experimental artists such as Adal Maldonado
Adal Maldonado
Adál is a Puerto Rican artist who forms part of the Nuyorican cultural movement in New York City.-Life and education:Born in Utuado, Puerto Rico, Adal Maldonado relocated to New York City at the age of seventeen...
(better known as Adál) collaborated with poets such as Pedro Pietri. During this time, the gay Chinese American painter Martin Wong
Martin Wong
Martin Wong was a U.S. painter of the late twentieth century.-Early years:Wong was born in Portland, Oregon and raised in the Chinatown district of San Francisco, California. He studied ceramics at Humboldt State University, graduating in 1968...
collaborated with his lover Miguel Piñero; one of their collaborations is owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
. In the 1970s and 1980s, graffiti-inspired artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist. His career in art began as a graffiti artist in New York City in the late 1970s, and in the 1980s produced Neo-expressionist painting.-Early life:...
achieved great recognition for their work. Installation artists such as Antonio Martorell
Antonio Martorell
Antonio Martorell is a well known Puerto Rican painter, graphic artist, writer and radio and television personality. He regularly exhibits in Puerto Rico and the United States and participates in arts events around the globe.-Life:...
and Pepon Osorio
Pepon Osorio
Pepón Osorio is a Latino artist.He was educated at the Universidad Inter-Americana, Puerto Rico, Lehman College, and graduated from Columbia University with an MA in 1985....
created (and continue to create) environments that bring together local aesthetic practices with political and social concerns. Since 1993, the Organization of Puerto Rican Artists (better known by its acronym O.P. Art) has opened a space for Puerto Rican visual artists in New York, particularly through its events at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center in the Lower East Side. More recently painters and muralists such as James De La Vega
James De La Vega
James De La Vega is an American visual artist of Puerto Rican descent who lives in New York City. He is best known for his street and muralist art, which has led to his occasional arrests, and for his innovative storefronts where he sells his paintings and merchandise...
, Miguel Luciano and Sofia Maldonado
Sofia Maldonado
Sofia Maldonado is a Puerto Rican visual artist who lives and works in New York City. She is especially well known for her dramatic graffiti-inspired murals of women, which are closely associated to a feminist Caribbean hip hop aesthetic. Her work has garnered enormous controversy due to its...
have continued to expand and explore this tradition. The work of curators and museum directors such as Marvette Pérez, Yasmin Ramírez, Deborah Cullen, and Susana Torruella Leval has also contributed to this effort and helped Puerto Rican and Nuyorican art gain more recognition.
Further reading
- Allatson, Paul. Key Terms in Latino/a Cultural and Literary Studies. Blackwell Publishing, 2007.
- Dávila, Arlene. Barrio Dreams: Puerto Ricans, Latinos, and the Neoliberal City. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. ISBN 0520240928
- Flores, Juan. "Creolite in the 'Hood: Diaspora as Source and Challenge. CENTRO Journal 16, no. 2 (Fall 2004):283-289.
- ------. Divided Borders: Essays on Puerto Rican Identity. Houston: Arte Público Press, 1993. ISBN 1558850465
- ------. From Bomba to Hip-hop: Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. ISBN 0231110766
- La Fountain-Stokes, Lawrence M.Lawrence La Fountain-StokesLawrence La Fountain-Stokes is a gay Puerto Rican author, scholar, and performer. He is better known as Larry La Fountain. He has received several awards for his creative writing and scholarship as well as for his work with Latino and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students...
Queer Ricans: Cultures and Sexualities in the Diaspora. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009. ISBN 9780816640911 - Negrón-Muntaner, Frances. Boricua Pop: Puerto Ricans and the Latinization of American Culture. New York: New York University Press, 2004. ISBN 0814758177
- Rivera, Raquel Z. New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. ISBN 1403960445
- Sánchez-González, Lisa. Boricua Literature: A Literary History of the Puerto Rican Diaspora. New York: New York University Press, 2001. ISBN 0814731465
- Sandoval-Sánchez, Alberto. José, Can You See?: Latinos on and off Broadway. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1999. ISBN 0299162001