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[latinidad-en-america]

Introduction to “Latinidad in the U.S.A.”

Latinidad is a Spanish-language term used to refer to a shared sense of Latin American culture among Latinxs despite their varying nationalities, races, languages, religions, etc. “Latinidad in the U.S.A.” refers to the ways in which Latin American culture manifests within the United States across Latinx communities—the ways and the degrees to which Latinidad is allowed, encouraged, silenced, and tolerated (or not) within its borders. The exhibit focuses on the shared life experiences of Latines in the United States as described through the work of five different Latine artists: Pedro Pietri, Peggy Robles-Alvarado, Mariposa, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Hurray for the Riff Raff. This curated collection juxtaposes the feelings of national and cultural pride that stem from being Latine with the feelings of disappointment and discontent that many Latines experience after facing systemic discrimination and injustice in a pre-dominantly white U.S.A. As being Latine in America is a source of both joy and outrage, this exhibit is meant to evoke both, as well as a healthy dose of resistance and the desire to keep marching on—seguir pa’lante.

[latinidad-en-america]

They worked

They were always on time

They were never late

They never spoke back

when they were insulted

[click here for full poem]

(1) 

“Puerto Rican Obituary” (1971) Pedro Pietri (1944 - 2014) Poem.

Pedro Pietri was a Puerto Rican-born and Manhattan-raised Nuyorican poet ("Pedro Pietri"). In this piece, Pietri writes of the day-to-day plights of five fellow Nuyoricans, serving as a kind of chronicler of his community’s life. The stories of these people are told stanza through stanza, and the reader is made to look through the eyes of several Puerto Ricans then living in the United States. Pietri uses the third person “they” in referring to those Nuyoricans, those who worked diligently, yet remained underpaid, and died in debt. And yet, when they die, they “will die again tomorrow,” and continue to die, waiting, and dreaming.

Pietri co-founded the Nuyorican Poets Café with Miguel Piñero and Miguel Algarín, among several other artists, in the 1970s. As a multi-cultural arts institution, the Nuyorican Poets Café has hosted diverse people of color whose work was unlikely to reach mainstream audiences and it continues to champion the use of art as "a means of social empowerment for minority and underprivileged artists" ("History of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe"). Locales such as these offered many Nuyoricans the opportunity to share their life experiences with artists and people within their community during a time when social and racial tensions remained high post-Civil Rights movement.

Pietri's was drafted during the Vietnam War, and experience as a Nuyorican, member of the Young Lords, and war veteran, was sure to inform his image of the United States in his work ("Pedro Pietri"). Although Juan, Miguel, Milagros, Olga, and Manuel are mentioned by name and serve as the main cast of the narrative, they symbolize the plight of all Nuyoricans—Miguel died waiting for welfare, Olga died waiting for a raise, Manuel died waiting for a promotion. Government aid, reasonable compensation, and a respectable job, are still among the various things out of grasp for many Latines, due to their status as Latines. As Pietri solemnly remarks, "They were born dead / and they died dead," commenting on how being Latine often unjustly relegates them to a lower quality of life.

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(2) 

“Boca Grande” (2017) Peggy Robles-Alvarado (DOB Unknown) Poem.

Peggy Robles-Alvarado is a Dominican-Puerto Rican educator and poet based in New York City whose work has appeared in several poetry anthologies (Robles-Alvarado). This poem, published in a 2017 anthology of Afro-Latine poets, is told from the point of view of a Latina who has been told that she’s too much of a “big mouth” (boca grande), too loud or too much, ever since she was a young girl. Despite this, she wears the title of Boca Grande proudly, regardless of whether it conforms or doesn’t conform to the expectations that others have of her, particularly the expectations of white Americans. “I may be too boisterous for church pillars and Corinthians, but I got the perfect pitch for areytos, pow-wows, and bembés,” she observes, proud of her indigenous heritage in a pre-dominantly white and Christian nation.

Although biographical in nature, “Boca Grande” narrates an experience not uncommon to Latinas, both within their Latine communities and outside of them: being silenced. As women, they are expected to speak, but not too much or too loudly, and to act, but only if appropriate for their sex. Robles-Alvarado rejects this, as she realizes that she was “gifted this voice… to challenge the limitations placed on [her] sex.” She knows many have tried to silence her and women like her, but she refuses to be silenced, to allow herself to be “re-enslaved” like her sisters before her.  

Living in a country where Freedom is held in such high regard, Robles-Alvarado likens the sound of women’s voices with the sound of freedom. Living in a country where Latines are forced to stand up for themselves and their rights, being labeled disobedient or malcria is a point of pride. Many women artists who shaped 21st century art haven’t been accounted for in art history due to sexism and inaccessibility, some only attaining recent recognition (Fajardo-Hill). Therein lies the importance of Robles-Alvarado’s message, to speak up, “refuse to keep still and be quiet.”

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(3) 

“Ode to the Diasporican” (2017) Mariposa (b. 1971) Poem.

Mariposa María Teresa Fernández, known professionally as “Mariposa, is a Bronx-based Puerto Rican poet and performance artist (“Mariposa”). Her poetry, written in Spanglish, often concerns themes of identity and culture. Perhaps her most famous work, “Ode to the Diasporican” is a love-letter to all Puerto Ricans who were not born on the island of Puerto Rico, but still call themselves Boricua, not unlike Mariposa herself. 

“Look at my Puerto Rican face / my hair, alive / my dark hands,” Mariposa writes, in Spanish, “...and tell me that I’m not Boricua.” For many people, to belong to one culture means that you must have been born in that culture’s cradle. However, culture cannot be as easily assessed, divided, or allocated, and mass migration has further complicated the subject. You can be born in Puerto Rico and not be Puerto Rican, just as you can be born outside of Puerto Rico and be Puerto Rican. 

“Some people think that I’m not bonafide,” Mariposa remarks, commenting on the idea that you’re supposed to look, speak, and act a certain way in order to be considered part of a group. In some cases, those expectations are built on racist stereotypes that have been perpetuated by the white majority. Rather than let herself be defined by others, Mariposa defines herself: “I was not born in Puerto Rico. / Puerto Rico was born in me.”

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(4) 

“To Live in the Borderlands” (1987) Gloria Anzaldúa (1942 – 2004) Poem.

Gloria Anzaldúa was a queer Chicana writer known for her work in feminist, cultural, and queer theory (“Gloria E. Anzaldúa”). She’s well known for her semi-autobiographical work, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987), in which she narrates and reflects upon the Chicane and Latine experience. Published in this book, “To Live in the Borderlands Means You” speaks of a figurative and physical “borderlands,” an in-between space felt by those who live between cultures and identities, such as Anzaldúa herself, as a Chicana, Mexican-American, Mestiza, etc.

“Borderlands” serve as a place of transition, transformation, and non-binaries—a place in which we co-exist, be it peacefully or violently. In Borderlands/La Frontera, Anzaldúa reflects on the idea that “nothing in [her] culture approved of [her],” which necessitates cultural tyranny as a means of challenging concepts considered “unquestionable” or “unchallengeable” (38). After all, those in power often make those without it believe that they are in the wrong, and would have them live without knowing otherwise.

To be Latine in the U.S. means knowing how to navigate these “borderlands,” and to live in the borderlands means that “denying the Anglo inside you / is as bad as having denied the Indian or Black.” Anzaldúa reminds us that to be of the borderlands means being conscious of all cultural facets of your identity and heritage, not just the ones that bring you pride, encouraging a sense of unity in a nation as diverse and divisive as the United States.

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(5) 

“¡Pa’lante!” (2017) Hurray for the Riff Raff (2007 - Present) The exhibit concludes with a musical piece (embedded above), written and performed by Hurray for the Riff Raff, an American folk band spear-headed by Puerto Rican artist Alynda Lee Segarra. “Pa'lante” is the eleventh song on their 2017 album, The Navigator, which was described by Pitchfork as “a folk concept album from a Nuyorican runaway who grew up obsessed with West Side Story before being liberated by Bikini Kill” (Ismael Ruiz). “Pa'lante” may be a piano ballad that doesn’t incorporate the contagious sounds of Puerto Rican bomba or salsa, as some of Riff Raff’s tracks do, but the authenticity of its lyricism, the solemn note of Lee Segarra’s voice, and the use of audio sampling make for a striking anthem for the “colonized” and “dehumanized.”

The desire to “get back home” and “be something,” to “prove [your] worth”, that’s sung about in the first verse—this is often the experience of the Latine within the United States, especially if they left their home behind for a shot at the American Dream. And yet, this is more difficult to achieve as a person of color. As a Puerto Rican, Lee Segarra is quick to comment on the United States’ treatment of Puerto Ricans on and off the “mainland,” and how this has affected her and her people. Despite being citizens of the United States since 1917, Puerto Ricans and their land have been exploited and treated unjustly.

“Colonized, and hypnotized, be something / Sterilized, dehumanized, be something.” By the chorus, Lee Segarra not only refers to Puerto Rico’s colonial history within the United States, but one of the horrors that Puerto Rican women were made to suffer by Americans. After Law 116, which allowed for eugenics-based sterilization, passed in Puerto Rico, U.S. eugenicists targeted poor Puerto Rican women for “sterilization and pharmaceutical experimentation” (Ordover). Overpopulation and poverty were used as both justification and opportunity for the U.S. to treat its citizens as second-class citizens, thousands of women unknowingly sterilized and subjected to the painful side effects of experimental birth control (Ordover).

After the bridge, Riff Raff samples a recording of Pedro Pietri’s “Puerto Rican Obituary,” remembering and re-memorializing the names of Juan, Miguel, Milagros, Olga, and Manuel. Despite the deaths that they, that Puerto Ricans, and that Latines throughout the country are made suffer on a daily basis, “¡Pa'lante!” the anthem cries—"Go on!“. A song of mourning, cultural identity, outrage, and resilience to encourage all Latines to continue marching on.