For those of you who missed the “Puerto Rico Now!” discussion (see previous post), the recording of the discussion is now available, courtesy of the Mellon Foundation. See links below.

Description: A vibrant island chain in the Caribbean, a multivocal diaspora on the mainland, a US territory – Puerto Rico holds an extraordinary place in the world, encompassing a variety of stories, experiences, and challenges. For years, the Mellon Foundation has been honored to support artists and scholars, poets and writers, community organizations and institutions of higher learning throughout Puerto Rico and its diaspora.

One July 28, 2022, Dr. Elizabeth Alexander (President, Mellon Foundation), Alana Casanova-Burgess (Host and Producer of the WNYC and Futuro Media podcast, La Brega: Stories of the Puerto Rican Experience), Dr. Yarimar Bonilla (Director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College in New York City), and Daniel Lind-Ramos (Sculptor and Painter) engaged in a discussion about Puerto Rico Now—its powerful multiplicity, its many lessons, and much more. (From the original announcement at https://puertoriconow.splashthat.com/?gz=f0a3cd2b950e1359)

Links: The recording of the 1-hour, 19-minute discussion is now available at https://mellon.org/news-blog/articles/puerto-rico-now and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbTu3U87vmU.

[Photo above: Miguel Luciano (Mellon Foundation Latinx Artist Fellow), “Studebaker, Plátanos y Machete” (detail), 2017, MADMi, San Juan, Puerto Rico.]