Month: October 2024

I. Afro-Boricua Archives

Bio

La Directora de CENTRO: The Center for Puerto Rican Studies Yomaira Figueroa-Vásquez was raised in Hoboken, NJ, and is a first-generation high school and college graduate.  Figueroa works on 20th-century U.S. Latinx Caribbean, Afro-Latinx, and Afro-Hispanic literature and culture. Her most recent book, Decolonizing Diasporas: Radical Mappings of Afro-Atlantic Literature, focuses on diasporic and exilic Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, and Equatoguinean texts in contact. She is currently writing a book on Afro-Boricua Histories and audiovisual archives.

“Afro-Boricua Archives”

The everyday moments shown in Frank Espada’s photos of Afro-Puerto Ricans and Aracelis Girmay’s poem “You Are Who I Love” represent Black people’s daily life and survival in the diaspora. These ordinary moments ask us to “listen” in a particular way that Tina Campt calls the “quiet register.” This means paying attention to the everyday things essential to being human, especially in Black communities.

Inspired by Tina Campt’s ideas, Figueroa suggests we try to “listen” to images, not just look at them. In her book Listening to Images, Campt explains that photographs are more than just something to see—they also have sound, energy, and emotions that we can tune into. She encourages us to go beyond simply looking at pictures and pay attention to the feelings and experiences they carry, especially in the context of Black cultural studies.

Presentation(s):

Leal-Angel,Ashley

John,Nashauna

Frank Espada

“These images and stories are works of poetry that refuse dehumanization and accusations of cultural pathologies. Instead, Espada renders his subjects through a lens of love, celebration, and dignity.”

Inspired by Yomaira Figueroa’s method of describing and “listening” to photographs of Afro-Boricuas, how can we interpret these Frank Espada photos? What elements stand out? What stories do they suggest?

Aracelis Girmay

“Both Frank Espada’s photography and Girmay’s poetry allow Puerto Rican, Afro-Puerto Ricans, and other people of color to see themselves rendered beautifully as survivors and resistors. These bundles of photography and poetry can be cleaved together (but not apart) because they are visualizations of the human.”

Pick a line from Aracelis Girmay’s “You Are Who Are Love” and add five more lines inspired by the people and communities you love.

Conclusion

Girmay and Espada create an archive of who is loved. Those loved in these poems and photographs are colonial subjects, diasporic peoples, those resisting coloniality, and practicing old/creating new ways to love one another. Within Espada’s work, we must bend our ears to listen to the poetics of the image; in Girmay’s work, we must conjure and imagine the people, the bodies, and the immense love she writes about. We can listen to his images, read her poetry, and behold an indispensable way to see communities that have disappeared by the archive, coloniality, and erasure.

II. Installation Artists

Daniel Lind-Ramos at MoMA PS1

Pepón Osorio in “Place”

I. “Aguanile” by Amina Gautier

Dr. Amina Gautier is an award-winning academic and Afro-Boricua writer. She has written four short story collections, many individual stories, and literary criticism.

Now We Will Be Happy is a prize-winning collection of stories about Afro-Puerto Ricans, U.S.-born Puerto Ricans, and displaced native Puerto Ricans living between spaces while attempting to navigate the unique culture that defines Puerto Rican identity. Amina Gautier’s characters deal with the difficulties of bicultural identities in a world that wants them to choose only one.

Songs are prominently featured in many of the stories in the collection. The music alluded to in various stories also, directly or indirectly, reflects the experiences of native Puerto Ricans, Nuyoricans, and Afro-Puerto Ricans.

The short story “Aguanile” uses the song by Héctor Lavoe and Willie Colón of the same title to portray the emotional ties and fractures of a Puerto Rican family spread out between NY and Puerto Rico. Gautier explores the possibilities of intergenerational bonding, troubled masculinities, the failures of (grand) father figures, and the importance of Afro-Caribbean music (Salsa) as a grounding cultural phenomenon for Puerto Ricans in the US and the archipelago.

Héctor Lavoe, (born Héctor Juan Pérez Martínez) was a Puerto Rican salsa singer. Lavoe is considered to be possibly the best and most crucial singer and interpreter in the history of salsa music because he helped to establish the popularity of this musical genre in the decades of 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. His personality, style, and the qualities of his voice led him to a successful artistic career in the whole field of Latin music and salsa during the 1970s and 1980s. The clearness and brightness of his voice, impeccable diction, and the ability to sing long and fast phrases with total naturalness made him one of the favorite singers of the Latin public.

Hector Lavoe y Willie Colon – Aguanile [PBS Studios, NYC (1972)]

What is the role of this song within the short story? (14-15)

Presentation(s)

Baez,Winifer

Quintero,Zachary Augustin

Discussion Questions

.How does mourning for salseros bring into perspective the cultural losses of previous Puerto Rican generations?

.Beyond being a beloved salsero, what do you think Héctor Lavoe represents in the story? Why is he at the center of the remembrance process?

Analytical Work in Duos

Pick ONE of the following series of interconnected topics and expand on how the story engages with and sheds light on them

.diasporic longings and family fractures

.Puerto Rican “vaivén” culture (back and forth/transnational)

.Salsa as an embodiment of Puerto Rican culture and masculinity

.dissapearing Puerto Rican cultures

.parenthood, traditional gender roles, and aging

The Shift Towards R&B

“Bills, Bills, Bills”– Destiny’s Child

What is the role of this song within the short story? (Page 10)

II. Puerto Rican Voices: Season Five, Episode Two

Tito Matos: Ahora Sí (Noelia Quintero, 2022)

Following Tito Matos’s death, this biographical episode of Centro Voices examines his legacy as a musician, cultural worker, mutual aid organizer, and agitator. Using archival footage to reflect on Tito’s contributions to Plena, we discover how he built knowledge, occupied neglected spaces, and mentored students in Puerto Rico and the diaspora.

Discussion Questions

.What is Tito Matos’ legacy to Puerto Rican culture?

.How does Tito Matos’ experience with the Puerto Rican diaspora contribute to the evolution of Plena?

.With what purpose did Tito Matos founded la Casa de la Plena? Do you consider la “casa” an artivism effort? How does it resist gentrification and displacement?

.How did Tito Matos nurture younger generations of “pleneres”? What role did inclusivity play in his activist pedagogy?

.In what other forms did Tito Matos perform his activism?

Slavery in Puerto Rico by the Numbers

Puerto Rico’s colonial society, although deeply entrenched in the institution of slavery, never had as high a percentage of enslaved people compared to other Caribbean islands like Cuba or Saint-Domingue (Haiti), where plantation economies were even more intensive.

By the early 19th century, enslaved Africans and their descendants made up about 11-15% of Puerto Rico’s population. This figure fluctuated depending on economic factors like the growth of sugar plantations, coffee production, and overall labor demands. For instance, in the mid-19th century, right before slavery was officially abolished in 1873, the enslaved population was estimated to be around 6% of the island’s total population, reflecting changes in labor structures and demographic shifts over time.

The number of free Black people increased during the 19th century due to manumission and legal frameworks that allowed enslaved people to earn their freedom. At the time of abolition, free Black people significantly outnumbered the enslaved Black population.

Bio

Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro is a Puerto Rican writer. She has published books that promote the discussion of Afro-identity and sexual diversity. She is also the founder and chair of Ancestral Black Women, created in response to UNESCO’s call to celebrate the International Decade for People of African Descent. In 2015, the UN invited her to speak about women, slavery, and creativity as part of the Remembering Slavery Program.

Her short story collection Las Negras won the 2013 National Short Story Prize from the PEN Club of Puerto Rico and explores the limits of the development of female characters who challenge hierarchies of colonial power.

The stories from Negras, “Wanwe,” “Midwives,” and “Arrowhead” pay attention to the violence of the Atlantic slave trade, from the capture in Africa to the forced labor in Puerto Rico and the colonial punishments against rebellious women. Although slavery is the backdrop of the collection, Arroyo Pizarro emphasizes the inner world, brilliant skills, and humanity of her enslaved protagonists.

“Arrowhead” portrays the exploitation endured by enslaved women, emphasizing that slavery did not strip them of their humanity. Enslaved Africans were manipulated, their desires exploited, and they were subjected to terror. Tshanwe’s experiences demonstrate how slave traders relied on the humanity of their captives to make the cruelty they inflicted significant. Arroyo Pizarro uses her narratives to depict acts of rebellion and survival against these atrocities.

Presentation:

Samuel,Meeks

Discussion Questions

.Analyze how and why Arroyo Pizarro presents sexual labor in “Arrowhead.”

.In what ways does Arroyo Pizarro present patriarchal/colonial violence?

.Why do you think the author paid attention to the linguistic barriers at the plantation?

.What is the relevance of the Namaqua women warriors in the story?

.How do you interpret the ending? Examine different connotations, meanings, and transformations of the “arrowhead.”

Creative Writing Exercise

Write a short poem based on the perspective of one of Arroyo Pizarro’s characters. Emphasize in the poem how the character you choose reflects on slavery and, if applicable, how they maintain dignity while facing oppression.

II. Enslaved Women and Subversion: the Violence of Turbulent Women

Herstorian, activist, educator, and founding member of the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAD), Stella Dadzie’s book A Kick in the Belly: Women, Slavery, and Resistance delves into the nature, legacy, and impacts of African enslavement. She examines, in particular, how women disrupted the trade and forced labor economies in Africa and the Caribbean.

How did enslaved women in the Caribbean defy, rebel, and subvert exploitation?

In her chapter, Stella Dadzie presents many cases in which enslaved women presented opposition to slavery, subverted plantation hierarchies, resisted labor exploitation, and worked toward manumission (buying their freedom). Dadzie also looks at escapes, conspirations, and insurrections.

Lastly, she examines how many enslaved women transmitted culture and spiritual and healing rituals. She considers these practices as forms of rebellion, too, because colonial and plantation systems were designed to discourage or entirely eliminate African and Afro-descendants’ cultural knowledge.

Some examples from Dadzie’s chapter:

.refusing to do assigned tasks or going to strike (114-5)

.disobedience and negligence (119-21)

.physical or psychological retaliation (116)

.using domestic intimacy and sexual labor as a way to gain freedom (118-9)

.escapes (122-4)

.plotting and instigating rebellions (124-8)

.killing and poisoning their enslavers and overseers (128-30)

.learning new languages and European/colonial cultural practices while preserving theirs (130-2)

Group Discussion: chain reactions

Briefly compare and discuss examples of rebellion from Dadzie’s text and the short story we read.

Did you find a form of resistance that surprised you, or you didn’t know about it?