El Sol Latino | November 2022 | 18.12

Foto del Mes/Photo of the Month

Mishie Serrano - Poeta Invitada

2022

contents

3 Portada / Front Page

The Long Road to a Successful Puerto Rican Studies Conference at HCC and STCC

4 2022 Puerto Rican Studies Association Conference

5 The Whitney Museum Presents the First Major U.S. Museum Survey of Puerto Rican Art in Nearly Fifty Years

7 CENTRO Receives Award from the National Archives and Records Administration

WEPRA Celebrated the 27TH Annual Flag Raising Ceremony

9 Educación / Education

Cinco Estudiantes de UPR-Río Piedras Ganan la Beca Mellon Mays

UPR de Utuado es Reconocida en Estados Unidos

10 Política / Politics

Census Data Hides Racial Diversity of US ‘Hispanics’ to the Country’s Detriment

11 Finanzas / Finances

Flood Cars: Avoid Buying a Shiny Rotted Car

12 Libros / Books

Smoker beyond the Sea: The Story of Puerto Rican Tobacco

13 Voices of the Race Black Newspapers in Latin America, 1870–1960

La intrusa

14 Deportes / Sports

Softball Tournament WESTERN MASS COPA 2022

15 Holyoke Old Timers Softball League- Potros ¡Campeones 2022!

Founded in 2004 Volume 18, No. 12 November 2022

Editor Manuel Frau Ramos manuelfrau@gmail.com 413-320-3826

Assistant Editor Ingrid Estrany-Frau

Art Director Tennessee Media Design

Business Address El Sol Latino P.O Box 572 Amherst, MA 01004-0572

Editorial Policy

El Sol Latino acepta colaboraciones tanto en español como en inglés. Nos comprometemos a examinarlas, pero no necesariamente a publicarlas. Nos reservamos el derecho de editar los textos y hacer correcciones por razones de espacio y/o estilo. Las colaboraciones pueden ser enviadas a nuestra dirección postal o a través de correo electrónico a: info@elsollatino.net.

El Sol Latino welcomes submissions in either English or Spanish. We consider and review all submissions but reserve the right to not publish them. We reserve the right to edit texts and

corrections

of space and/or style. Submissions may be sent to our postal address or via electronic mail to: info@elsollatino.net.

El Sol Latino is published monthly by Coquí Media Group.

El Sol Latino es publicado mensualmente por Coquí Media Group, P.O Box 572, Amherst, MA 01004-0572.

Rican Studies Association Conference

-

Community

La poeta Mishie Serrano, estudiante de HCC, acompañada de sus abuelos Aurelio Morales e Idalia Morales y de su mentor y profesor Raúl Gutiérrez, momentos después de su presentación durante el evento.

The Long Road to a Successful Puerto Rican Studies Conference at HCC and STCC

by MANUEL FRAU RAMOS

The three-day national 2022 Puerto Rican Studies Association Biennial Conference (PRSA) took place on the campuses of Holyoke Community College (HCC) and Springfield Technical Community College (STCC) between October 14 and 16, 2022.

The theme adopted for the 2022 Puerto Rican Studies Association conference was Moriviví: Activating Puerto Rican Futures. “Thinking through the diverse ecologies of human and non-human resistance that surround us, we offer the moriviví as a metaphor for imagining Puerto Rican futures thriving in the diaspora and on the archipelago,” the PRSA states in its conference information materials.

The conference, focusing on a wide range of Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans topics, gathered more than 200 participants, among them academicians, students, artists, and community members on the campus of Holyoke Community College. The Conference took place four years after the PRSA Conference “Navigating Insecurity: Crisis, Power, and Protest in Puerto Rican Communities,” at Rutgers University that was held October 26-28, 2018. No PRSA Conference was held in 2020.

On the evening of Saturday, October 15, STCC hosted the PRSA commencement dinner and gala. Around 120 attendees packed the conference hall to listen to keynote speaker Dr. Bárbara Abadía-Rexach, professor of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University.

During the gala event two members of the PRSA were recognized for their professional work. Hilda Lloréns was presented with the Frank Bonilla Book Award in honor of Frank Bonilla, founder and longtime director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies (Centro) at Hunter College and one of the most distinguished and pioneer figures in the field of Puerto Rican Studies. Sara Camille Awartani received the Virginia Sánchez Korrol Dissertation Award. This award is named in honor of Virginia Sánchez Korrol, a historian and professor emerita in the Department of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies at Brooklyn College, and one of the founding members of Puerto Rican Studies in the City University of New York as well as the PRSA.

The success of this conference took dedication, hard work, commitment, creativity, time, and a considerable team-work. In addition, a significant amount of political negotiations with key Puerto Rican stakeholders was

needed in order to make the conference a reality. I would like to share with our readers some of work that took place behind the scenes as we moved forward and shaped this important conference.

On August 2018, Dr. Carlos Santiago, at that time Massachusetts Commissioner of Higher Education, Dr. John Cook, President of STCC and myself (Dr. Manuel Frau Ramos) met during the Latino Scholarship Fund Annual event held in Holyoke. During our conversation I expressed to Dr. Santiago my desire to once again, organize and bring the biannual PRSA Conference to Western Massachusetts. The 2020 Conference would commemorate the 20th anniversary of the PRSA conference that was held at the UMass Amherst campus 20 years earlier.

In 2000, the PRSA held the 4th Conference of the Puerto Rican Studies, ¡Bregando! Negotiating Borders and Boundaries: Puerto Ricans in the Emerging Global Communities of the 21st Century at UMass Amherst. This conference, co-chaired by Dr. Carmen Rolón and Dr. Manuel Frau-Ramos, resulted in one of the most attended and financially successful biannual conferences in the history of the PRSA. It also contributed to a considerable growth in membership for, reaching approximately 500 members. At the time, Dr. Carlos Santiago and Dr. Edna Acosta Belén were president and vice-president of the organization, respectively.

Shortly after my conversation with Dr. Santiago and Dr. Cook, I reached out to my colleague, Dr. Arleen Rodríguez, and invited her to be co-chair of the hosting committee. I then proceeded to contact Dr. Christina Royal, HCC President to invite her to be part of this 2 education institution proposal. She accepted out invitation to have HCC act as co-host of the Conference with STCC.

A proposal was then submitted to the PRSA Executive Council. It stated that HCC would host the academic component of the conference, and STCC would host the commencement dinner and gala event. The proposal also stated that the Holyoke Public Library/The Puerto Rican Cultural Project, and the Hispanic American Library in Springfield would be partnering with the 2 educational institutions.

What made this initiative different was that traditionally, the biannual conferences were held at four-year colleges or research university institutions, and this time we were asking two community colleges to share the venue for the conference.

The rationale for this unprecedented decision in selecting these two community colleges to act as hosts was based on the fact that as of 2016 Massachusetts has the fifth largest Puerto Rican population in the United States. Holyoke has the largest Puerto Rican population, per capita, of any city in the United States outside Puerto Rico, and Hampden County, where Holyoke and Springfield are located, has the largest Puerto Rican population in Massachusetts with 90,000.

Springfield is recognized as the base of the Puerto Rican political and economic power within the Commonwealth. In addition, the rapidly changing demographics in this region due to the increase of Puerto Ricans has helped Holyoke Community College (HCC) and Springfield Technical Community College (STCC) become two of the newest Hispanic-Serving Institutions in the nation.

On September 2019, after more than a year of negotiations between the local hosting committee and the Puerto Rican Studies Association

PRSA Executive Council, (l-R) Marisol Lebrón, Jessica Pabón-Colón, Karrieann Soto-Vega, Joaquín Villanueva, Michael Staudenmaier, Yomaira Figueroa-Vásquez, Mónica Jiménez and Shakti Castro

Portada

Front Page

2022 Puerto Rican Studies Association Conference

Springfield Community College & Holyoke Community College

Executive Council, our proposal was accepted and we were given the green light to start organizing the 2020 PRSA Biennial Conference. The event was scheduled for October 2020 with the theme Separate and Unequal: The inclusive / Exclusion of Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans in the United States

However, the event never took place. On the one hand, the COVID pandemic derailed the plans and progress already made. On the other hand, an internal division arose within the PRSA. This drift caused a complete reorganization of the PRSA Executive Council. On September 19, 2020, a new Puerto Rican Studies Association Executive Council was elected.

Fast forward to 2021, when Joaquín Villanueva, the new PRSA present, and myself had a conversation about the status of our proposal to have HCC and STCC host the conference in 2022. On December 2021, the first online meeting between the new PRSA Executive Council and member representatives of HCC took place. As a result of this meeting, a new steering committee, including members of PRSA, HCC, STCC and myself was organized.

The product of this long journey culminated in the successful three-day conference titled “Moriviví: Activating Puerto Rican Futures” a conference that gave scholars, artists, educators and community leaders the opportunity to present and discuss their latest work, and discover new and interesting developments in the area of Puerto Rican Studies.

The Long Road to a Successful Puerto Rican Studies Conference continued from page 3

Through the lens of Manuel Frau Ramos

Joaquín Villanueva and Hilda Llórens, 2022 Frank Bonilla Book Award Winner

Marisol LeBrón, PRSA Vice-President and Sara Camille Awartani, 2022 Virginia Sánchez Korrol Dissertation Award Winner

Professors María E. Pérez y González and Virginia Sánchez Korrol

Barbara Abadía-Rexach, PRSA Gala Keynote Speaker and Delmarina López, MC

Jorrell MeléndezBadillo, Michael J. Staudenmaier, PRSA Treasurer, and Joaquín Villanueva

John Cook, STCC President, Manuel Frau Ramos, Joaquín Villanueva, PRSA President, and Gaddier Rosario, graphic artist who designed and created the 2022 PRSA Conference poster

PRSA Executive Council, HCC President, STCC President, Conference Steering Committee, Awardees, Artists, MC, and Keynote Speaker

Portada / Front Page

The Whitney Museum Presents the First Major U.S. Museum Survey of Puerto Rican Art in Nearly Fifty Years

New York, NY, | WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART | September 15, 2022 — The Whitney Museum of American Art’s exhibition no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria brings together over fifty works by an intergenerational group of twenty artists from Puerto Rico and the diaspora whose art has responded to the transformation brought on by Hurricane Maria—a high-end category four storm that hit Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017. Organized to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the storm, the exhibition is defined by the larger context in which the devastation was exacerbated by historic events that preceded and followed this defining moment.

The first scholarly survey of contemporary Puerto Rican art presented by a major U.S. museum in nearly half a century, the exhibition is organized by Marcela Guerrero, Jennifer Rubio Associate Curator, with Angelica Arbelaez, Rubio Butterfield Family Fellow, and Sofía Silva, former Curatorial & Education Fellow in US Latinx Art, Whitney Museum. no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria will be on view from November 23, 2022, through April 23, 2023.

“The artists in this exhibition challenge us to understand the historical, physical, and political forces that have shaped Puerto Rico, and to see both our own responsibility and vulnerability,” said Adam D. Weinberg, the Alice Pratt Brown Director of the Whitney Museum. “Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria is a harbinger of things to come for those who are most vulnerable, not just in the Caribbean, but worldwide.”

On September 7, 2017, Hurricane Irma skirted Puerto Rico, followed by Hurricane Maria, which made landfall less than two weeks later. Crises that had been accumulating before the hurricanes intersected overwhelmingly with the events that erupted in Maria’s wake. Economic austerity measures had been implemented in Puerto Rico just a year before the storms, prolonging the disinvestment in infrastructure; a political scandal ignited large-scale street protests that resulted in the ouster of Governor Ricardo Roselló in the summer of 2019; and a series of earthquakes and tremors destroyed homes and schools in the southern part of the archipelago in early 2020, only a few months before the arrival of COVID-19. Recovery from the storms and the events that followed continues to be hindered by ongoing electrical blackouts, school closures, and rising housing costs created by massive gentrification.

“no existe un mundo poshuracán proposes that imagining a new Puerto Rico is absolutely and resolutely the purview of artists,” noted Guerrero, who worked in close collaboration with the artists throughout the planning of the exhibition and visited artists’ studios across the continental U.S. and in Puerto Rico. “The future of selfdetermination is inherently a creative act. Art can be the medium of a post-hurricane, post-austerity, post-earthquake, and post-pandemic world. This exhibition is a call to see the living and an invitation to pay tribute to the dead.”

The exhibition examines artists’ evocations of and responses to the transformative events of the last five years in five thematic sections:

Fractured Infrastructures

`The exhibition takes its title, no existe un mundo poshuracán, roughly translated as “a post-hurricane world doesn’t exist,” from a poem by Puerto Rican poet Raquel Salas Rivera, featured in the exhibition as an artwork. Through painting, video, installation, performance, poetry, and newly commissioned works created for the show, the exhibition looks at the five years since Hurricane Maria to highlight urgent and resonant concerns in Puerto Rico, including the trauma created by fractured infrastructures; the devastation of ecological histories and landscapes; loss, reflection, and grieving; resistance and protest; and an economically-driven migration of Puerto Ricans to the United States during an upswell of American tourism and relocation to the island.

The artists in no existe un mundo poshuracán seek to analyze the fracturing created by the storm in the very structure of Puerto Rico’s politics, culture, and society. They are Candida Alvarez, Gabriella N. Báez, Rogelio Báez Vega, Sofía Córdova, Danielle De Jesus, Frances Gallardo, Sofía Gallisá Muriente, Miguel Luciano, Javier Orfón, Elle Pérez, Gamaliel Rodríguez, Raquel Salas Rivera, Gabriela Salazar, Armig Santos, Garvin Sierra Vega, Edra Soto, Awilda Sterling-Duprey, Yiyo Tirado Rivera, Gabriella TorresFerrer, and Lulu Varona.

The devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria exposed the dated infrastructures that failed Puerto Ricans at their most vulnerable, including a severely damaged electric grid that left thousands without power for months following the storm. Years of neglect continued to accumulate following the 2015 revelation of a debilitating national debt and the implementation of new austerity measures mandated by the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) law, passed by the United States Congress in 2016. In early 2020, earthquakes and their aftershocks caused additional significant harm to homes and schools, particularly in the south of the main island, with residents having to return to these precarious homes almost immediately in order to quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gabriella Torres-Ferrer’s sculpture Untitled (Valora tu mentira americana) [Value Your American Lie], 2018, symbolizes the collapse of infrastructures following the hurricane and undermines the belief in the protective power of U.S. citizenship. In the work, a single wooden electric post found among the storm’s debris is positioned diagonally as if in mid-fall. It still bears a propagandistic sign urging voters to value their American citizenship.

Sofía Gallisá Muriente, still from Celaje, 2020. Original score by José Iván Lebrón Moreira. 16mm and Super 8 film transferred to HD video; 40:57 min. Courtesy the artist.

Portada / Front Page

The Whitney Museum Presents the First Major U.S. Museum Survey of Puerto Rican Art

The large-scale painting ID. Escuela Tomás Carrión Maduro, Santurce, Puerto Rico—New on the Market (2021) by Rogelio Báez Vega depicts an elementary school in a state of eerie and unsettling abandonment, referencing the alarming increase in public school closures and the subsequent sale of their buildings to private real estate investors. The work mourns the continued loss of such important institutions and condemns the Puerto Rican government for failing to protect schools from further decline.

Critiques of Tourism

Following Hurricane Maria, migration grew exponentially, with some 150,000 migrants (4.3% of the population) leaving permanently. This economically driven migration and relocation of Puerto Ricans to other parts of the United States took place concurrently with policies that provide tax breaks and other financial benefits to American tourists, investors, and entrepreneurs coming to the island. Underlying this economic phenomenon are Acts 20 and Act 22 of 2012, which offer tax havens to U.S. corporations and wealthy individuals—many of them real estate and cryptocurrency speculators.

Sofía Gallisá Muriente’s video collage B-Roll (2017) is a parody of promotional videos aimed at attracting foreign investors to speculate in real estate and cryptocurrencies in Puerto Rico.

Appropriated from videos produced by the Puerto Rico Tourism Company and the Department of Economic Development and Commerce of Puerto Rico, the artist remixed the B-roll footage to highlight common tropes in the marketing campaigns. Composed by Daniel Montes Carro, the electronic music that accompanies B-Roll combines audio taken from the videos with field recordings from the 2016 Puerto Rico Investment Summit.

Yiyo Tirado Rivera’s La Concha (2022) is one of a series of sandcastle sculptures made in the shape of iconic hotels located in San Juan since the 1940s. Over time, the sandcastles slowly deteriorate, referencing the perils of building Puerto Rico’s infrastructure around foreign consumption. The work also addresses ecological concerns by alluding to the persistent coastline erosion caused by storms, further exacerbated by the construction of hotels and other luxury properties by the sea.

Processing, Grieving, Reflecting

Seared into the minds of Puerto Ricans is the number 4,645—the citizens who died as a direct or indirect consequence of Hurricane Maria. Until 2018, the official death toll was sixty-four, laying bare the government’s apparent disregard for its citizens and an attitude of negligence toward the most vulnerable sectors of the population. Scientific and investigative reporting in the aftermath of the hurricane found alarming increases in deaths from accidents, cardiac conditions, diabetes, suicides, and potentially deadly yet preventable infectious diseases.

Rendering grief materially and poetically through personal perspectives are Gabriella Báez’s Ojalá nos encontremos en el mar (2018–ongoing) and Raquel Salas Rivera’s book of poems while they sleep (under the bed is another country). Báez presents a cache of ephemera and photographs of objects that once belonged to her father, who died by suicide two months before the first anniversary of Hurricane Maria. Attempting to understand his trauma as well as her own, the artist created interventions in some of the photos, connecting the eyes and hands of the images of herself and her father with red thread, thereby affixing their bond in perpetuity.

Ecology & Landscapes

The environmental impact of Hurricane Maria cannot be understated. The 157-mile-per-hour winds and torrential rains caused inestimable damage and widespread destruction to Puerto Rico’s vegetation, dramatically

transforming the landscape and altering the ecosystem. Artists in the exhibition respond by documenting the scenery in ways that respect the land and draw attention to its vulnerable state.

Javier Orfón’s photographs of Cupey leaves that he has drawn on and inscribed with phrases uttered by forest rangers—such as “No reconozco plantas muertas (I don’t recognize dead plants)”—speak to the urgent threats against nature while emphasizing the limits of natural science collections: indexing will not save nature from the devastation of climate change.

Resistance, Protest

The Summer of 2019, or Verano del 19 as it became known in Puerto Rico, was marked by ongoing public protests following the revelation of a series of text messages between Governor Ricardo Roselló and other government officials disparaging individuals and certain segments of the populace, including the hurricane’s victims. Large groups of protestors took to the streets of San Juan and Chicago, New York, Madrid, and other cities worldwide, creating a viral uprising under the hashtag #RickyRenuncia [Resign Ricky]. The announcement of Roselló’s resignation on July 24, 2019, jubilantly affirmed that a popular call for political action could transform into a historic win for the nation.

Throughout that summer, the Instagram account of graphic design artist and sculptor Garvin Sierra, @tallergraficopr, became a wide-reaching platform for updates on current events and national grievances. With color and compositional elements borrowed from an instantly recognizable 1950s art movement associated with Puerto Rico and overlaid images and phrases, Sierra’s digital posters employed an economy of design and the spontaneity of social media to provide breaking news and information to citizens and people around the world.

The impact of graphic design is also evident in Miguel Luciano’s Shields (2020), a sculptural installation of ten “shields” made from the metal armor of decommissioned Puerto Rican school buses—vehicles that would have once protected children while in transit to local schools. Each piece features a Puerto Rican flag painted in black and white on the inside as a symbol of dissent, along with a handle that would allow them to be used, quite literally, as shields. As a response to the closure of schools in recent years due to the hurricanes, earthquakes, debt crisis, austerity measures, and corruption, the works evoke a defense of the island’s young people and their right to self-determination

Catalogue

An accompanying exhibition catalogue, no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria, published by the Whitney and distributed by Yale University Press. Ranging from university professors to activists and performers, the catalogue’s contributors represent a new generation of Puerto Rican intellectuals who reveal, often in poignant and personal terms, the ways art offers a path through adversity. Like the exhibition, the catalogue reflects a collective awakening grounded in resistance that disrupts colonial infrastructure and asserts that selfdetermination is a creative act.

Contributors include Marcela Guerrero, Marina Reyes Franco, Ramón H. Rivera-Servera, Karrieann Soto Vega, Diego Alcalá Laboy, Yarimar Bonilla, Macha Colón, Ramón Cruz, Carina del Valle Schorske, Arcadio DíazQuiñones, Angélica Negrón, and Ana Teresa Toro.

Copies are available for purchase online and in the Whitney Shop ($45). A Spanish version will be available in PDF format free of charge.

Portada / Front Page

CENTRO Receives Award from the National Archives and Records Administration

NEW YORK, NY | CENTER FOR PUERTO RICAN STUDIES at HUNTER COLLEGE – CUNY | October 12, 2022 - The Center for Puerto Rican Studies (CENTRO) at Hunter College has received a $150,000 award from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission to create a new educational experience for the Puerto Rican Heritage Cultural Ambassadors Program (PRHCA). This program is a free, self paced, multimedia online course on Puerto Rican history and culture based on CENTRO archival holdings.

Through the Public Engagement with Public Records Grant, CENTRO will migrate its online course to a new website and mobile application designed to make the ambassador program more accessible to a broad public, including high school students, college students and instructors.

“Our mobile-friendly website and application will not only serve as a resource for public engagement with historical archives, but will also be a model of collaboration to help minority serving institutions construct culturally sensitive digital tools,” said Yarimar Bonilla, Director of CENTRO. “With this award, CENTRO can diversify access to historical resources and promote archival literacy among underrepresented groups.”

As part of the project, CENTRO will collaborate with educational researchers to redesign the program’s curriculum, with web developers to craft a digital platform, and with multimedia artists to bring CENTRO’s collections to life through videos, illustrations and other multimedia resources. The plan of work entails eight phases and the initial assessment period is expected to take from February through July 2022.

The Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College – CENTRO founded in 1973 by a coalition of students, faculty, and activists, the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College (CENTRO) is the largest university-based research institute, library, and archive dedicated to the Puerto Rican experience in the United States. CENTRO provides support to students, scholars, artists, and members of the community at large across and beyond New York. CENTRO produces original research, films, books, and educational tools, and is the home of CENTRO Journal—the premiere academic journal of Puerto Rican Studies. The aim of CENTRO is to create actionable and accessible scholarship to strengthen, broaden, and reimagine the field of Puerto Rican studies.

The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), a statutory body affiliated with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), supports a wide range of activities to preserve, publish, and encourage the use of documentary sources, created in every medium ranging from quill pen to computer, relating to the history of the United States.

WEPRA Celebrated the 27TH Annual Flag Raising Ceremony

Westfield, MA | WESTFIELD PUERTO RICAN ASSOCIATION | The 27th Annual Ceremony of the Raising of the Puerto Rican Flag to celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month was held October 2, 2022. Laura Castro offered welcoming remarks, introducing WEPRA, the Westfield Puerto Rican Association, formerly WSAA. This group continues with the tradition of raising the flag of Puerto Rico in front of Westfield City Hall and of recognizing members of the community. This year, the organization recognizes and honored Gabino and Isabel Castro. Father John Salatino, Pastor at St. Mary’s Church, provided the invocation.

Agma Maria Sweeney, the president of WEPRA acknowledged the presence of community leaders in attendance such as Mayor Michael McCabe. Also present were State Senator John Velis, State Representative Kelly Pease, Westfield State University President Dr. Linda Thompson, and Westfield City Councilors Cindy Harris, Nick Morganelli, Bridgette Matthews-Kane, and William Onyski. Other community leaders in attendance were Becky Blackburn of the Westfield Athenaeum, and Juan Falcón, founder and Executive Director of the Hispanic American Library of Springfield. Members of the press present were Natalia Muñoz of Holyoke Media, and Marc St. Onge of The Westfield News.

A WEPRA priority is to support students and their families with college scholarships with an endowment fund created under the leadership of honoree Isabel Castro. WEPRA believes “we are stronger together,” so they strive to collaborate with local groups. Two of their members joined the Latinx Education Advisory Committee at Westfield State University. WEPRA encourages literacy and has partnered with the Westfield Athenaeum for the program “Hablando Conmigo,” a Spanish Language conversation group held on Saturday afternoons.

WEPRA celebrates Puerto Rican culture with events like the ceremony to raise the island’s flag along with folkloric musicians Ismael Santiago and his continued on page 8

Agma Maria Sweeney, president of WEPRA. Photo by Natalia Muñoz, Holyoke Media Sweeney explained that WEPRA is a non-profit organization that advocates for education, history and culture of the Puerto Rican community of Westfield and Western Mass. They achieve these goals through mutual respect, friendship, and appreciation for the other. They invite people to join the organization who are looking to share and work together. For a membership application and information, folks may email them at WEPRA. Westfield@gmail.com.

Portada

Front Page

children Beatriz and Marcos accompanied by guitar player Doña Lydia Santiago and Héctor Pérez on the Puerto Rican national instrument the cuatro.

This year’s flag ceremony was unique because for the first time, the flag flown is an official flag of Puerto Rico, made in the same factory and cut out of the same cloth as the flags flown at the Puerto Rico Capitol Building in San Juan, and at the 78 cities and towns throughout the island.

The ceremony was dedicated to Gabino and Isabel Castro. Gabo and Isabel met working at a tobacco farm in Westfield. Gabo had recently arrived from Guayama, Puerto Rico. Isabel, of Puerto Rican parents, was born and raised with her nine brothers and sisters in Westfield. They fell in love, got married and have 4 children: Marisa, Adiana, Lucas, and Laura, and 4 grandchildren.

Gabo worked for many years at Digital Corp. until they closed their doors. This provided Gabo the opportunity to follow his dreams of becoming a barber. He studied, got his credentials and license, and began working at Amherst Barber Shop. He was the business manager and barber there until Covid closed the shop. Now retired, Gabo lives an exemplary life. He attends daily mass at St. Mary’s Church, is a eucharistic minister and his friends know they can count on him.

Isabel has worked in Human Services for 40 years. She’s currently the Director at the new Springfield office of MCS, the Multicultural Community Services, where she helps persons with disabilities and their families access services and necessary supports that are culturally appropriate. Community work is central to Isabel’s profession.

Isabel is the Vice-President of the executive board at Domus, Inc., the Westfield organization that develops affordable housing. She was an active board member at WSAA, serving as President, Vice-President, and Treasurer. Isabel considers one of her greatest achievements funding the Endowment Fund for scholarships through the Citizen Scholarship Fund of Westfield.

Don Gabo’s favorite athlete is Puerto Rico’s own Roberto Clemente. The Castro family lead their lives of service, and family life by applying Roberto Clemente’s famous philosophy, in his own words: If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people, and you don’t do that, you are wasting your life on this earth.

President for Business and Community Jeffrey Hayden.

Educación / Education

Cinco Estudiantes de UPR-Río Piedras Ganan la Beca Mellon Mays

RÍO PIEDRAS, PR | UNIVERSIDAD DE PUERTO RICO – RÍO PIEDRAS | 12 de octubre de 2022- La reconocida beca subgraduada Mellon Mays (MMUF, por sus siglas en inglés) fue concedida este año a cinco estudiantes de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras (UPR-RRP), acreditando sus esfuerzos y compromiso con los estudios.

Jean M. Cruz Marzán, Joniel R. Pacheco Muñoz y Francisco J. Vidal Franceschi, de la Facultad de Ciencias Sociales; junto a Patricia Santalices Torres y Arianna Rosario Valentín, de la Facultad de Humanidades, fueron los merecedores de la beca.

Esta beca brinda a los estudiantes la oportunidad de expandir sus conocimientos y sus estudios, además de facilitar los recursos necesarios para llevar a cabo sus investigaciones. Asimismo, les abre un espacio a las comunidades minoritarias, las cuales no siempre tienen oportunidades de esta magnitud.

Los estudiantes recibirán un estipendio por dos años y tienen la oportunidad de publicar su trabajo de investigación en la revista Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Journal. Estos recibirán un beneficio económico de $1,800 cada semestre y $3,900 cada verano.

Asimismo, pueden obtener hasta $900 para viajes académicos con el propósito de presentar su investigación y/o para visitar programas graduados; $400 para la compra de libros y materiales de investigación; $600 para tomar el repaso del GRE; y hasta $10,000 para el pago de préstamos subgraduados o graduados en las disciplinas elegibles. Igualmente, obtienen una afiliación a la comunidad de práctica académica MMUF

Jean Cruz Marzán, quien actualmente cursa un bachillerato en Ciencias Sociales Generales con un enfoque en Estudios de América Latina y el Caribe, y una segunda concentración en Historia de las Américas de la Facultad de Humanidades, tiene como meta continuar hacia la escuela graduada y formarse como historiador e investigador.

En el caso de Joniel Pacheco Muñoz, se encuentra estudiando psicología con una segunda concentración en Ciencias Sociales con énfasis en estudios puertorriqueños y una concentración menor en estudios de género; y tiene interés en dedicarse a la investigación y desea ser profesor.

Por otra parte, Francisco Vidal Franceschi, busca culminar su bachillerato en Antropología con énfasis Sociocultural, con una segunda concentración en Sociología con énfasis en Estudios Culturales y Estudios de Género; y una concentración menor en Lenguas Extranjeras, específicamente, en Chino Mandarín.

Mientras, Patricia Santalices Torres, cursa su cuarto año de bachillerato en Literatura Comparada, con segunda concentración en Periodismo y una concentración menor en Estudios de Mujer y Género.

UPR de Utuado es Reconocida en Estados Unidos

RÍO PIEDRAS, PR | UNIVERSIDAD DE PUERTO RICO – RÍO PIEDRAS | 18 de octubre de 2022 – El recinto de la Universidad de Puerto Rico en Utuado se convirtió esta semana en la única institución educativa en Puerto Rico reconocida a nivel nacional como protectora de abejas y polinizadores, al unirse al programa “Bee Campus USA”, el cual promueve la importancia de los polinizadores para la agricultura de Estados Unidos.

Los polinizadores son animales que se alimentan del néctar de las flores y durante sus visitas transportan accidentalmente polen de una flor a otra, permitiendo que las plantas produzcan frutos.

“Algunos se preguntarán ¿por qué nuestras abejas y otros polinizadores son importantes? Pues sepa que sin ellos no habría comida. Ellos son responsables de la reproducción de casi el noventa por ciento de las especies de plantas con flores del mundo y de una gran cantidad de la comida que consumimos los seres humanos,” dijo la doctora Olgaly Ramos, entomóloga y profesora de Tecnología Agrícola del único recinto de la UPR establecido en un entorno rural.

De acuerdo con el Departamento de Agricultura federal, uno de cada tres bocados de alimentos que comemos existe debido a polinizadores animales como abejas, mariposas, polillas, pájaros, murciélagos, escarabajos y otros insectos.

“Si entendemos la importancia del recinto de Utuado en el desarrollo de una verdadera agricultura sustentable en Puerto Rico, entendemos la gran importancia de esta designación, especialmente luego del paso del huracán Fiona,” añadió la profesora.

Aunque aún no hay estudios oficiales sobre los efectos del huracán Fiona en las abejas de la isla, se estima que recibieron un impacto significativo. Según el Departamento de Agricultura de Puerto Rico, aproximadamente el 80% de las colmenas en la isla sucumbió durante el huracán María.

Entre las iniciativas que le ganaron el reconocimiento como el único “Bee Campus” en la isla, está el énfasis que el recinto de Utuado dedica a plantar flores nativas en todos los jardines del campus, así como la reducción en el uso de plaguicidas

sintéticos que se usan en la finca de 118 cuerdas, donde ubica el recinto. “La designación como “Bee Campus” nos va a permitir a los estudiantes de la UPR de Utuado a entender mejor la importancia del manejo de abejas para poder desarrollar la agricultura en la isla,” dijo Gabriel Luciano, estudiante de tercer año en Agricultura Sustentable.

Para mantener esta designación, cada año el campus deberá reportar y demostrar sus logros en la protección de polinizadores. Para obtener más información sobre el programa Bee Campus, pueden visitar https://www. beecityusa.org/.

El recinto de Utuado provee acceso a la educación superior a todos los ciudadanos, incluyendo a aquellos que viven en áreas remotas, lo que crea mayor equidad entre el Puerto Rico urbano y el rural.

Política / Politics

Census Data Hides Racial Diversity of US ‘Hispanics’ – to the Country’s Detriment

by RAMONA L. PÉREZ Professor of Anthropology -San Diego State University

This article was originally published in The Conversation | October 7, 2022

As I opened a recent email from my local grocery store chain advertising Hispanic Heritage Month – it runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 each year – I was surprised to see it highlighting recipes from four distinct regions: Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and South America.

The advertisement rightly noted that while corn and beans have framed much of what in the United States is considered “Hispanic” foods, Latin America has a much greater diversity of foods. Its cuisine, which began long before the Spanish or other colonizers came to the Americas, continues to flourish.

While many of us Latine – an alternative term for Latinos or Latinx that I prefer – embrace our European heritage, we also embrace our Indigenous and African heritage.

In recent decades, many Latin American nations have officially recognized their Indigenous and Afro-descendent populations as distinct groups with unique histories, cultures, foods and languages.

Countries across the Americas, including the United States, have revised their census questions to better understand their populations, enabling them to create more inclusive policies that actually address people’s needs – and to recognize the too-often hidden achievements of these groups.

Census changes in Latin America

Some Latin American countries, such as Peru, have counted their Indigenous population for over a century. But with the exception of Brazil and Cuba, Latin American countries generally excluded race on their national census, allowing economic and social inequalities to flourish undocumented.

The effort to better capture both Indigenous and Afro-descendant populations in Latin America began around the turn of the 21st century. Uruguay, a small and prosperous South American country, long portrayed itself as white and European despite being home to Afro-Uruguayans descended from enslaved Africans. In 1996, under pressure from Afrodescendent activists, it added race to its national household survey. That census had census workers identify the respondents’ race and found the country to be 6% Afro-descended and revealed stunning racial disparities in education, income and employment. When in 2006 Uruguayan censustakers began asking residents to state their own racial identity, the Afrodescended population jumped to 10%. This data shift had important implications when Uruguay implemented race-based affirmative action a few years later.

In Mexico, where Indigenous identity had previously been linked only to speakers of one of the country’s 68 Indigenous languages, the census was changed in 2020 to ask if respondents self-identified as Indigenous or belonged to a community that identified as Indigenous. The result was an increase of 7.1 million people to 23.2 million who identified as Indigenous. The same change targeting the Afro-Mexican population identified a previously unrecognized population of 2.5 million.

‘Some other race’

The U.S. added a question about Hispanic descent to the 1970 census long form, and to the short form in 1980. The question asked, “Is this person of Hispanic/Spanish descent?” If the answer was Yes, these were following options: Mexican or Mexican-American or Chicano; Puerto Rican; Cuban; Other Spanish/Hispanic.

In subsequent decades, small changes were made such, as including the word “Latino” and allowing those who choose “other” in the national origin category to write in a response, with suggestions of “Argentinian, Colombian, Dominican, Salvadoran, Spaniard, and so on.” In 2020, the census allowed respondents to identify as “multiracial.”

The U.S. Census Bureau argues that its categories now adequately capture the heritage of the 62.6 million Hispanics that flourish in the U.S. “because all detailed Hispanic origin groups are included in the newly combined code list.”

In fact, however, if your heritage stems from one of the hundreds of Indigenous or Afro-descended groups in Latin America, these identities remain outside of the way the U.S. captures race among the Hispanic populations. That may explain why, according to the Census Bureau “the vast majority (94%) of responses to the race question that are classified as Some Other Race are from people of Hispanic or Latino origin.”

Overgeneralized and under-recognized

When the fixed categories of a census erase the diversity of a population, the gross miscalculations that result may harm a country’s ability to appropriately respond to the needs of its people.

For example, the overgeneralizing of U.S. Hispanics hurts the quality of American education and health care when these institutions assume that Latin American heritage communities speak Spanish. In addition to Indigenous languages, Latino Afro-descendant populations may not speak Spanish but rather may speak French or Haitian Creole, Portuguese or an Indigenous language. If they are from the Miskito Coast of Nicaragua, they may speak an English Creole.

These language differences reflect unique cultures and histories that relate to how people engage with doctors, teachers, politicians and much more.

Failing to recognize the diversity of Hispanics also creates frequent election surprises in the U.S. For example, pollsters got the Latino vote all wrong in 2020 by lumping together 32 million people with diverse political opinions and national origins as “Latino.” Democrats arguably made the same mistake in 2018.

In overgeneralizing Hispanics, the U.S may also overlook – to its own detriment – the knowledge and experience of a culturally unique people who bring with them alternative understandings of the world, some of which I’ve studied as an anthropologist focused on food security, migration and health in Latin America. These include agricultural practices that can aid American farmers in responding to the global climate crisis and Mesoamerican strategies for health based on communal care and traditional remedies.

A growing community with more to offer

Despite its limitations, U.S. census data clearly shows that the Hispanic population continues to grow. While the overall U.S. population increased 7% between 2010 and 2020, the Hispanic population expanded by 23%. Today, 1 in every 5 people in the U.S. identifies with Hispanic or Latino heritage.

This growth is particularly notable in the South – in states like Georgia and North Carolina – and in rural areas. The Hispanic population has become a demographic lifeline for parts of small-town America that experienced significant population loss in the late 20th century.

Dr. Ramona L. Pérez

Finanzas

Finances

Flood Cars: Avoid Buying a Shiny Rotted Car

After every major hurricane come thousands of flood cars. Hurricane Ian was no exception. Unfortunately, many of those cars are destined to make their way up to the Northeast, despite them being declared a total loss by insurance companies. I know you’re probably wondering how these cars make it this far.

Many of those flood cars are sold to salvage companies or end up in scrap yards, which are then purchased by individuals known as “flippers,” who then make them look like new from the outside, that is.

Because title washing (“retitled) practice is common among flippers, the title may not disclose that the insurance company branded the title as “salvage flood,” hiding the history of the vehicle when a buyer only takes a quick glance at the title. Although not always 100% accurate, consumers can check the vehicle’s history online (i.e., CarFax, AutoCheck).

An unsuspecting buyer will be drawn to the vehicle by its great price, exterior shiny look, and instant fragrant smell. What the buyer does not know is that those three signs combined could be red flags to look for. Flood cars have warnings signs you certainly don’t want to avoid. Buying on impulse and not doing your research could end up costing you much more than the actual price of the car.

Although most problems with flood cars will not appear right away, months later, trapped oxidized moisture will result in corroded wires, brakes and circuit boards, causing electrical problems and mechanical system failures. With floodwater damage, there is also the issue with mold, rust and corrosion over a period of time, particularly in the undercarriage of the vehicle.

Paying a personal mechanic to thoroughly inspect the vehicle is always a good idea, although if the flood damage was recent, the corrosion or

by MILAGROS S. JOHNSON

mechanical issue may still not be present. Going through the vehicle with a white glove is always helpful. Running the finger through the glove box, trunk, underneath the carpet, and dashboard may detect signs of mud, or dried up dirt or presence of rust.

Use your nose to detect mold odor, and don’t be fooled with the smell of an air or carpet freshener. Moisture in the headlight or taillight could also tell a story. Putting the car on a lift may show caked-on mud or debris from the flood damage.

More often than not, months later when the buyer of the flooded car discovers the vehicle’s prior flood history, its estimated costly repairs, and unsafe condition of the vehicle, the vehicle gets traded-in and ends up on a dealer’s lot. This could then begin another cycle for another unsuspecting buyer if the vehicle’s flood history is not disclosed.

Know that flood cars rot from the inside out. My advice to you is to, “Never fall in love with the shiny car but the one that’s dependable, reliable and safe.”

For more information, or to speak with a Consumer Specialist, call (413) 787-6437 or email us at moci@springfieldcityhall.com.

MILAGROS S. JOHNSON is the Director of the Mayor’s Office of Consumer Information in Springfield, a Local Consumer Program funded by the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office.

Hispanic communities have also reinvigorated urban neighborhoods as they open small businesses.

Rebuilding cities, stabilizing rural counties, expanding local economies –these are among the group contributions made by the community of Americans celebrated each year during Hispanic Heritage Month.

The better we understand the nuances of this large population, the better we will understand who we are as a nation – and benefit more fully from our diversity.

RAMONA PÉREZ is Professor of Anthropology, Director of the Center for Latin American Studies, and Chair of the Aztec Identity Initiative at San Diego State University. She also is the Chair of the Institutional Review Board (2012 to present) and is graduate faculty in Global Health and Women’s

Studies. Dr. Pérez has worked for more than 25 years on issues of gender and empowerment, lead poisoning among rural and indigenous people of Oaxaca, migration from Mexico and Central America to the US and Baja California, Interpersonal violence against women and children, structural violence and health, and identity among indigenous Mexicans and Latinxs on both sides of the US/Mexico border.

Her publications are in English and Spanish and can be found in journals and manuscripts in the fields of anthropology, geography, public health, social work, criminal justice, and medicine. Dr. Pérez has held fellowships and research grants from the US Department of Agriculture, Tinker Foundation, Ford Foundation, National Science Foundation, and Department of Education.

Smoker beyond the Sea: The Story of Puerto Rican Tobacco by JUAN JOSÉ BALDRICH

JACKSON, MI | UNIVERSITY PRESS OF MISSISSIPPI | October 21, 2022 |

Description: In this groundbreaking volume, Juan José Baldrich traces the deep changes affecting Puerto Rican tobacco growers and manufacturers and their export markets from the Spanish colonization of the island to the present. Based on more than twenty years of research in the United States and Puerto Rico, the book sheds light on the important history of tobacco in Puerto Rico while highlighting the people and practices that have indelibly shaped Puerto Rico and its culture.

Smoker beyond the Sea: The Story of Puerto Rican Tobacco is a work of recovery that examines tobacco’s transitions from medicinal use to rolls fit for chewing and pipe smoking, followed by the appropriation of the Cuban paradigm for cigars and cigarettes, and, finally, to the US models after the 1898 invasion. This pioneering volume also offers the only history of the US tobacco monopoly in local agriculture and manufacture from its beginning in 1899 to the bankruptcy of its last successor company forty years later. Baldrich’s extensive research documents the organization of the cigar and cigarette manufacturing sectors and the resulting development of trade unions and socialist ideals. This multidisciplinary investigation gives due attention to the modifications that farmers made to tobacco planting and harvesting techniques in fine-tuning plants to the expected aromas and tastes of the manufactured commodities. In addition, Baldrich pays considerable attention to gender relations in the labor process, not only in the manufacturing sector but also in tobacco agriculture. The book also provides the only narrative of the rise and maturity of the Hermanos Cheos, a powerful apocalyptical movement that began and spread in the tobacco growing regions. Ultimately, this enco

Review:

“Juan José Baldrich brings together a wealth of information to produce a longue-durée Puerto Rican tobacco history, melding the political, economic, and social-cultural, and embracing class and gender, while also interweaving individual stories that bring the narrative to life. Such an all-encompassing book on Puerto Rican tobacco history is long overdue and long awaited from an author who is the recognized leading authority on Puerto Rican tobacco.” - Jean Stubbs, author of Tobacco on the Periphery: A Case Study in Cuban Labour History, 1860–1958

Author:

JUAN JOSÉ BALDRICH is a retired professor from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at University of Puerto Rico. He is author of Sembraron la no siembra: Los cosecheros de tabaco puertorriqueños frente a las corporaciones tabacaleras, 1920–1934 and has been published in numerous journals, including Agricultural History and CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies. He has also contributed chapters to such edited volumes as El tabaco en la historia económica and Puerto Rican Women’s History: New Perspectives.

Política

Politics

Voices of the Race Black Newspapers in Latin America , 1870–1960

by PAULINA LAURA ALBERTO, GEORGE REID ANDREWS, JESSE HOFFNUNG-GARSKOF

CAMBRIDGE, UK | CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS | September 2022 | 357 pages

Description:

Voices of the Race offers English translations of more than one hundred articles published in Black newspapers in Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, and Uruguay from 1870 to 1960. Those publications were as important in Black community and intellectual life in Latin America as African American newspapers were in the United States, yet they are almost completely unknown to English-language readers. Expertly curated, the articles are organized into chapters centered on themes that emerged in the Black press: politics and citizenship, racism and anti-racism, family and education, community life, women, Africa and African culture, diaspora and Black internationalism, and arts and literature.

Each chapter includes an introduction explaining how discussions on those topics evolved over time, and a list of questions to provoke further reflection. Each article is carefully edited and annotated; footnotes and a glossary explain names, events, and other references that will be unfamiliar to English-language readers. A unique, fascinating insight into the rich body of Black cultural and intellectual production across Latin America.

Review:

‘The editors have mined scattered and precarious archives to bring together the voices of influential Black Latin American commentators as they grappled with questions of identity, community, and belonging in their own nations and with other communities of the African diaspora. To have these rare documents in conversation with each other is remarkable; to have them in translation, contextualized with thematic introductions, is priceless.’ Kim D. Butler - author of Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians in Post-Abolition São Paulo and Salvador

‘This collection is a treasure trove of sources on the Black press in Latin America. Each article offers insights into how Black reading publics engaged with topics like politics, education, and arts, while navigating racism in their communities. The translations and annotations draw new connections between Black newspapers in Latin America, the United States, and across the African Diaspora. This is a vital and important contribution to the field.’

Matthew Delmont - Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor of History, Dartmouth College

‘Three leading scholars organized this extraordinarily rich material in a way that enables the reader to fully appreciate the historical significance of the articles presented in these pages. Anyone interested in the intellectual worlds, political crusades, and cultural lives of Afro-Latin Americans will be indebted to these historians for editing this volume and making accessible these precious fragments of the struggles of Afro-descendants to make their voices heard.’ Barbara Weinstein - author of The Color of Modernity: São Paulo and the Making of Race and Nation in Brazil

Authors: Edited and translated by PAULINA LAURA ALBERTO, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, GEORGE REID ANDREWS, University of Pittsburgh, JESSE HOFFNUNG-GARSKOF, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Mar Celina Sierra escribió este cuento en el 1995 dedicado a su madre Aurelia Rodríguez Arroyo (1921-2013). La publicación será lanzada en los próximos meses como parte de la campaña de recaudación de fondos para la reapertura de la organización cultural Guakía, Inc.

Guakía es una organización comunitaria independiente, establecida en 1983, dedicada a la preservación, afirmación y celebración de las artes, la cultura y el patrimonio puertorriqueño e hispano a través de la educación en la región de Greater Hartford de Nueva Inglaterra. El enfoque de la organización está en los niños, la comunidad, la educación artística (música, danza, artes teatrales, artes visuales y escritura creativa) y las humanidades.

Para mas información pueden cominicarse a Guakía, Inc. P. O. Box 260029, Hartford, CT 06126 o por vía telefónica al 860-5489555 o por correo electrónico a guakiainc@gmail.com.

Dibujo realizado por la autora en el 1987 (estudio de luz), utilizado en la portada del libro La intrusa de 1995.

La intrusa

Son las tres de la mañana, busco afanosamente en mi pequeña biblioteca de aproximadamente tres por cuatro y medio pies, la verdad de la vida. Bueno, me conformo con un delicioso cuento o una poesía, no muy fatalista a estas horas de la madrugada. Algo que pueda entretenerme la vigilia de este insomnio malcriado a fuerza de inquietudes agridulces vomitadas por la conciencia.

Busco a Pablo Neruda y no lo encuentro, cruzo el manantial Julia de Burgos, tropiezo con Olga Nolla, no estoy en el mood. Contemplo a José Luis González, pero ya me lo sé de memoria, me provoca Ana Lydia Vega y recuerdo haberla dejado en la oficina. Impetuosamente entretengo a Alberto Cortez entre mis senos, me da un beso con la mirada que le robó a Juan Golondrina y alza vuelo sin despedirse. Cautelosa, tanteo la almohada de Jorge Luis Borges, irónicamente me abre la ventana de sus sueños, pero esta vez prefiero los míos. Desahoga en un suspiro abismal la corrida de ojos hambrientos deslizados al precipicio desde el borde de la última tablilla de mi pequeña biblioteca.

Esta vez la caída no dolió tanto, las nalgas de mis ojos, desconocidas anteriormente por mis pasadas carreras ojeadoras, proveyeron el rebote hasta la primera tablilla. ¿O, fue quizás la cuidadosa organización de los libros que nunca hice, o la redondez del tapetito de encajes que no recuerdo haber visto antes, el que suavizó la caída?

Nuevamente, a un ritmo más lento, mis grandes ojos inquisitorios ruedan y rodean por los espacios obvios y abstractos de la pequeña biblioteca. La verticalidad de los libros aumenta mi sospecha de que alguien ha estado en mi biblioteca. Mi corazón, diestro sabueso, olfatea la ternura olvidada en el acordeón de libros iluminados por palabras hechiceras. Luciérnagas encantadas que lloran, cantan y bailan al son de su fantasía. Oculto tras su atuendo primitivo de vida en vientre de fe, esperanza y primavera, el amor, evocado por la matita de agua de hojas ovaladas que juega al esconder entre los libros con la pespunteada luz de la madrugada, delata la identidad de la intrusa.

Tú, eres el oro sonrosado de la sabia aurora en que me fundo. Bendición Mami.

La intrusa por MAR CELINA SIERRA | 1995

Deportes / Sports

Softball Tournament WESTERN MASS COPA 2022

McNally Field, John Young and Field Springdale Field Holyoke, MA • October 8- 9, 2022

Wally, Junior Colón, Cepillín, and Heri

Fotos cortesía de Springfield OTSI

Edgar Rivera y Juan Santos

Potros - ¡Campeones

Fine Arts Center

Únase a la celebración de la apertura de la Temporada 2022-2023 del Fine Arts Center con una serie de eventos virtuales y presenciales que celebran la humanidad presente en todos nosotros.

Jueves, 17 de novienbre, 7:30 p.m. Bowker Auditorium

Asientos Reservados $35, $25

Asientos Reservados $35, $25 – Jóvenes menores de 17 y estudiantes de los Five College $10

En 2020, la saxofonista Lakecia Benjamin fue nombrada Rising Star en la 68ª encuesta anual de la revista DownBeat. Ese mismo año se publicó el último álbum de Benjamin, Pursuance: The Coltranes, una obra maestra intergeneracional que lleva al oyente a un viaje por el linaje del jazz a través de las obras de John y Alice Coltrane. Carismática y dinámica, Benjamin fusiona las concepciones tradicionales del jazz, el hip-hop y el soul. Benjamin ha compartido escenario con gigantes como Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, The Roots y Macy Gray. Benjamin infunde su concepción del jazz con los sonidos de James Brown, Maceo Parker, Sly and the Family Stone y los Meters, produciendo ritmos elevados dignos de la pista de baile.

Los ritmos de Benjamin llevan el ambiente clásico a un nivel completamente nuevo, creando algo especial con cada número, desde un ambiente ardiente hasta la intensidad del jazz y la armonía de varios instrumentos de viento usados en el funk.

EvEnto AuspiciAdo por

política de salud y seguridad covid-19: El Centro de Bellas Artes se adherirá a las políticas actuales de la Universidad de Massachusetts Amherst. Para mas información visite la guía actualizada para los eventos en el campus UMass Amherst: www.umass.edu/coronavirus/news/public-health-preparations-fall-semester

Para conocer nuestra programación de la temporada completa o boletos de entrada llamar al: 413-545-2511 ó al 800-999-UMAS ó en línea fneartscenter.com

Noviembre 2022 Lakecia Benjamin Quartet Billy Taylor Jazz Residency Victor Gould, piano, Ivan Taylor, bass and EJ Strickland, drums