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Rivera
Strikes Again
Hector Luis Rivera
& Louis Reyes Rivera (poets)
Lucas Rivera (novelist) -- Raquel
Z. Rivera (critic)
Sunday, October 26, 2003 8pm to midnight
Bowery Poetry Club -- 308 Bowery (below Bleecker St.)
$7 donation
The Bowery Poetry Club is the site of a
literary invasion by four Puerto Rican writers, all of whom bear
the surname Rivera. Beginning at 8pm, on Sunday, October 26, 2003,
the program, RIVERA STRIKES AGAIN!, cuts across both poetry and
prose to present a landscape of literature and activism by writers
who have made their mark upon New York City's cultural scene.
Armed with books, CDs, and lasting reputations, the featured
writers include performance poet Hector Luis Rivera, poet/essayist
Louis Reyes Rivera, freelance journalist and novelist Lucas
Rivera, and critic/educator Raquel Z. Rivera, offering a full
evening of performance and open dialogue.
Hector Luis Rivera, co-founder of The
Welfare Poets, a collective of musicians and poets that
incorporates Hip Hop with Bomba, Plena and Latin Jazz, has been
writing and performing his work for the past 12 years. His poetry
was included in Nancy Nuevez's theatrical production of Blind
Alley, and in Taller Boricua's 30th Anniversary exhibition. Known
for his activism in community struggles around housing,
environmental justice, police brutality, political prisoners, and
most recently, in the battle for Vieques, Hector Luis continues to
perform original works while serving as an educator in several New
York City schools.
Louis Reyes Rivera, award-winning poet/essayist, has
been a mainstay in cultural activism for well over thirty years.
Among his more recent credits are Bum Rush The Page: A Def Poetry
Jam (Crown Publishers, 2001), co-edited with Tony Medina, and his
own Scattered Scripture, winner of the 1997 Latino Writers
Institute Award for Poetry. A professor of Creative Writing,
African-American, Nuyorican, Caribbean literature and history,
Louis has worked in Jazz clubs and festivals with The Sun Ra
All-Stars Project, Ahmed Abdullah's Diaspora, and with his own
band, The Jazzoets, which is regularly featured at Sistas' Place
in Brooklyn. He appeared on the Peabody award-winning HBO show,
Def Poetry Jam, and can be heard every Thursday, at 2pm, on WBAI
(99.5 FM) hosting Perspective.
Lucas Rivera is a freelance journalist-turned novelist, who
has worked with investigative reporter Jack Anderson, and whose
articles have appeared in Urban Latino, Vibe, Village Voice,
Brooklyn Bridge and New York Daily News, among others. His
articles on the Latin Kings involved more than six years of
research in between such other assignments as the World Trade
Center bombing, the war in Nicaragua, the Bhopal disaster in
India, and the earthquake in Mexico City. The Lucky Street
Chronicles is his first novel, in which Lucas captures the essence
of Spanish Harlem at a time when crack was first introduced into
Communities of Color.
Raquel Z. Rivera has made her impact as a major critic of
Hip Hop and contemporary literature. The author of New York Puerto
Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), Raquel is
currently a professor at the Department of Africana and Puerto
Rican/Latino Studies at Hunter College. Her studies of Hip Hop and
Puerto Rican culture has resulted in articles covering the
evolution of Caribbean musical expression, such as Puerto Rican
bomba, música jÃbara, plena, as well as Dominican palos and
salves, reflecting both the indigenous and African roots of that
music. In addition, her articles, stories and poetry, published in
numerous newspapers, journals and anthologies, have contributed
much to such topics as race and ethnic relations, gender issues,
Puerto Rican national identity, and cross-Caribbean cultures. A
founding member of Puerto Rican music group yerbabuena, she is
currently a member of the all-women’s music collective Yaya,
dedicated to exploring traditional Boricua and Dominican music.
Autographed books & CDs available.
The Bowery Poetry Club is located at 308 Bowery, near
Bleecker Street (# 6 to Bleecker or F train to Second Ave.).
RIVERA STRIKES AGAIN! begins at 8pm, with a $7 donation at the
door. Autographed copies of books and CDs will be available for
sale. For more information, contact Bowery Poetry Club at
212-614-0505, or Louisreyesrivera@aol.com .
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Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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If you like this page consider making a donation
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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update 4 August
2008
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