Diasporic Journeys: Interviews with Puerto Rican Writers in the United States

edited by CARMEN HAYDÉE RIVERA

Description:

Diasporic Journeys is a collection of interviews on contemporary Diasporic Puerto Rican authors publishing and performing throughout the United States and abroad, with particular interest in the ways in which history, traditions, geographic dispersal, cultural/national identity, and linguistic merging converge in their lived experience and in their writing. The collection includes interviews with varied topics, thematic concerns, and accomplishments in each author’s life and works. Taken as a whole, the experiences of these writers provide insights into the effects of Puerto Rican migration and displacement from a national culture but also highlight a progressive socialization process that informs their writing and worldviews.

The interviews simultaneously display how the reality of those born and/or raised in the US is informed by an earlier generation of Puerto Rican writers, while at the same time creating a distinct style pertinent to a new age of PuertoRican literary production in the United States.

The writers included in the collection are: Giannina Braschi, Rodney Morales, Luisita López Torregrosa, Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, Javier Ávila, José Luis Torres-Padilla, Aya de León, María Teresa “Mariposa” Fernández, Caridad de la Luz, Migdalia Cruz, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Quiara Alegría Hudes, and Raquel Salas Rivera.

CARMEN HAYDÉE RIVERA, professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras. She is coeditor of Writing Off the Hyphen: New Critical Perspectives on the Literature of the Puerto Rican Diaspora. and a critical biography on Chicana writer Sandra Cisneros, Border Crossings and Beyond: The Life and Works of Sandra Cisnero (2009).

Concerns About the Well-Being of Children and Families in our Community

solving, expanded thinking and exploration of best practices. Ideas about how to work effectively with others will be sparked, be they small and simple or global and far reaching in their impact. Who knows what ripples will be created?

The following is an excellent example of how a simple declaration of rights might impact on social reform. In 1959, the United Nation’s General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, which defines children’s rights to protection, education, health care, shelter, and good nutrition. The Convention, i.e., resolution, is the most rapidly and widely ratified international human rights treaty in continued from page 7 history. The Convention changed the way children are viewed and treated – i.e., as human beings with a distinct set of rights instead of as passive objects of care and charity. The unprecedented acceptance of the Convention clearly shows a wide global commitment to advancing children’s rights. The United States, along with 196 other countries, has signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child; however, United States remains the only United Nations member to have not ratified the Convention. We signed but did not ratify. How is that rational? How is that moral? How is that possible? What seems to be an impossible moral contradiction not only survives but improbably thrives in our country. Why?

Art Jayko Clinton and Jonathan Suazo at Springfield Jazz & Roots Festival 2023

The 10th Annual Springfield Jazz & Roots Festival held on July 20th – 22nd, 2023 in Springfield, MA featured two Puerto Rican musicians, Art Jayko Clinton y su KomboLoko “La Banda”, y Jonathan Suazo.

Jayko y su KomboLoko “La Banda” have been around since early 2000. In March of 2009, they launched their first major recording, “Dime Lo Que Quieres” with special guest legendary singer Ray De La Paz, and band members Alvin Santos and Eddie Temporal. Their participation at the Springfield Jazz & Roots Festival was a tribute to the music of salsas greatest musicians Willie Colón, Héctor Lavoe, and Rubén Blades.

Jonathan Suazo is a Puerto Rican Saxophonist, Composer, Arranger and Flow Artist. His new Ricano project highlights traditional rhythms from his Puerto Rican / Dominican roots and ancestry within a Cross-Cultural Fusion. Jonathan has performed with artists such as: Giovanni Hidalgo, Christian Nieves, William Cepeda, ILé, Miguel Zenón, Paoli Mejías, Humberto Ramírez, Silverio Pérez, Charlie Sepúlveda, and many others.

The Springfield Jazz & Roots Festival produced by Blues to Green, a nonprofit organization that harnesses music and the arts to celebrate community and culture, build shared purpose, and catalyze social and environmental change.