Remixed Nations: Dominican-Puerto Rican Nationalism in Sietenueve's Hip-Hop

This essay studies Hip-Hop by Sietenueve, a Puerto Rican MC of Dominican descent, as a rewriting of Puerto Rican nationalism which makes room for a dual national identity. In doing so, the essay focuses on the emergent point of view of the second generation of the Dominican diaspora in Puerto Rico and on its novel articulations of national identity. Operating within broader aesthetic networks of Hip-Hop and the Caribbean, Sietenueve revisits Puerto Rican icons so as to counter the homogenizing cultural patterns resulting from neoliberalism and at the same time unmoor nationalism from traditional hierarchies and open it up to the Dominican diaspora. Moreover, Sietenueve imagines a poetic link to an ancestral Dominican homeland and thus replaces notions of rootedness with liberating motifs of mobility and creativity. In that sense, Sietenueve's Hip-Hop persona is emblematic of a Dominican second generation in Puerto Rico that is empowered by its double ability to remix and redefine both outmoded Puerto Rican icons and physically distant Dominican lands

Buscando la Libertad: Latino Youths in Search of Freedom in School

Drawing from a two-year ethnographic study of Latino high school students engaged in youth participatory action research (YPAR), this article describes students’ quest for freedom in schools, locating their struggle within a larger effort to realize the democratic ideals of public schooling. Using Latino/a Critical Race Theory as a theoretical lens, the author demonstrates how popular discourse around the “achievement gap” often obscures the oppressive policies and practices implemented by educators that limit freedoms necessary for educational and personal development and profoundly influence the identities and life trajectories of Latino youth. The article concludes with an exploration of YPAR as a practice of educational freedom with the potential to transform the educational experiences and outcomes for Latino youth and other communities that have been traditionally underserved by schools

The House of Pretension: Space and Performance in Miguel Piñero's Theatre

Nuyorican poet and playwright Miguel Piñero sets his play Short Eyes and his collection Outrageous One-Act Plays in theatrical spaces that highlight confinement as an inescapable reality where identities are dictated by racial and social hierarchies. This emphasis on spatial limitation continues a particular tendency in Puerto Rican island essays and theatre toward representing identities marked by their defensive self-enclosing in domestic spaces. Piñero in turn transforms this isolation by highlighting the marginality of those who experience it and poses a performed element through which solidarity with other ethnic and social groups can be envisioned. By studying this aspect of Piñero’s theatre, Nuyorican drama can be reconnected with island culture in order to transcend a separation of both literary bodies that is common in criticism. (RI

Designing Meaningful Projects That Meet Community Needs

Taller Puertorriquefio is a community-based cultural center, located in a North Philadelphia neighborhood rich in history. Poverty has taken hold of the area as the collapse and flight of industry and work opportunities has occurred. With so many needs in our area. Taller has to make careful program choices. This is not easy when the needs are so great. In our 22-year history, our mission has been for the arts and culture to be at the core of what we do. Our guiding question in assessing community needs is How can Taller best influence the overall well-being of the community it serves through the arts? We seek to develop multidisciplinary arts and cultural programs in which the community can participate in a significant way