- Considering the label “Nuyorican” was originally an insult,
until artists transformed its meaning, how does this alteration of language
carry through Nuyorican poetry?
- Similarly to the film Lone Star, Latino poetry highlights
the blurred lines between multiculturalism and intersectionality. How do the
works of Laviera, Morales, and Baca convey these complexities?
- How does Algarin’s use of the term “moonlighting” in the
poem “Latero Story”, or Pietri’s central focus on the “dead Puerto Ricans” in
“Puerto Rican Obituary” help address the Latino communities faulty view of “the
American dream?”
1. Nuyorican used to have a negative connotation, it described the puerto rican immigrants that came to new york and tried to assimilate. It addressed those who came from working and often impoverished families who were the target of ostracism and discrimination. Miguel Algarin and Pedro Pietri helped alter this word and shed a new light on Puerto Ricans that wasn't shown before. Pietri sympathized with the Puerto Ricans, "they worked, they were always on time, they were never late, they never spoke back when they were insulted, they worked...they died." Just through a few lines of his poem, one could tell that puerto ricans weren't valued during their lives, but at least they would always be remembered through the works of Pietri, Algarin and many others.
ReplyDelete2. The works of Laviera, Morales and Baca depict different latino groups such as Puerto Rican and Mexican, both groups that suffered as they were trying to survive living in America. Through these writer's poems these struggles were conveyed and many stereotypes were squashed, such as Mexicans coming here to steal our jobs and thrive off our land. Many racist and discriminatory remarks were thrown around at our hispanic population, but these poems helped delineate the truth and showed these people for what they truly were, hard working and ambitious.
3. Most Latino communities probably immigrated to America fervently believing in this "American dream" which really was a dream for them. Because in reality, these people were thrown off the ladder to success and represented as lazy and forever stagnant. "Dead Puerto Ricans", were those among many other groups that just lived to work and die. No matter how long or how hard they tried they were just never getting out of the vicious circles they were in and this was mostly due to the ignorance of Americans at the time, the "true Americans".