The Puerto Rican Harlem Renaissance

By Courtney Suciu

从布加洛舞和莎莎口语开裂,Puerto Rican New Yorkers have had a profound impact on music and literature around the world. We’ll explore how a hunger for a cultural identity and creative fellowship among an impoverished, marginalized population evolved into a radical arts movement, a cool brand for the MTV generation and an inclusive safe space for diversity and self-expression.

But was this evolution a matter of cultural collaboration and cooperation, or cultural appropriation?

How did the Nuyorican movement begin?

Narrator of the documentaryThe Salsa Revolution¹, actor Jimmy Smits set the scene:

1960年代在东哈林市，埃尔·巴里奥（El Barrio）。到那时，这座城市拥有超过一百万的拉丁美洲人，主要是波多黎各人。许多人年轻，是战后大规模的一部分，其寻求身份会改变美国文化。出生于纽约的波多黎各人将成为尼罗里克人，莎莎将成为他们的旗帜。

这个讲西班牙语的社区 - 从美国主流和数百英里和几代人处于边缘地位） - 是这些折衷影响的新音乐诞生的肥沃理由。

正如非洲人普鲁托·里康（Afro-Puerto Rican）诗人，记者兼激进主义者费利佩·卢西安（Felipe Lucian）解释说：“摇滚使我们击败了我们，这使我们击败了我们，就像其他任何美国人一样。”

“It didn't take long for musicians in el barrio to make R&B and rock their own,” Smits continued. “They called it Latin boogaloo, a fusion of traditional Latin rhythms and the new sounds of a new generation.”

While hits songs like Ray Barretto’s “El Watusi” and Pete Rodriguez’s “I Like It Like That” semi-popularized this funky, free-wheeling dance music, other artists like band leader Willie Colón sought to put more emphasis on a fusion of traditional Cuban, Puerto Rican and global influences. Mambo, cha-cha-cha, bomba and son were combined with Spanish guitars, African percussion, North American jazz and Spanglish lyrics to ignite a new international music and dance sensation – salsa.

但是音乐只是埃尔·巴里奥（El Barrio）的这场革命的一部分。整个运动都在展开，在70年代初期，它的枢纽是Nuyorican诗人咖啡馆。

Nuyorican诗人咖啡馆

In the documentaryShattering the Silences: The Case for Minority Faculty²，现已退休的，波多黎各人出生于莎士比亚，创意写作和国际文学的教授米格尔·阿尔加林（Miguel Algarin）回忆起在他的家中举办一家努利裔艺术家和知识分子的沙龙的日子：

我住在第六街（在东村），我的朋友们在我家收集。早上三到四点，我将在罗格斯举行八点钟的课程。所以通常，我什至不会上床睡觉。我会洗澡，穿衣服，坐火车和教书。我意识到我必须把这些人带出我的客厅，这是我的身体和精神疲惫。这就是这样发生的。

So, in 1974, Algarin and his friends rented a nearby storefront café where they could gather at all hours to read, perform, argue with and support each other. The Nuyorican Poetry Café became the heart of this community still trying to develop a sense of identity as it struggled with poverty, the loss of its cultural heritage, and in many cases, the disintegration of family structures.

“纽约波多黎各人的根源是什么？”阿尔加林在1981年关于“努利良的文学”的文章中问。³他以黯淡的绝望形象回答了自己的问题：

这些根源确实是贫民窟的碎片，涵盖土地的焦油和混凝土，仅仅是蛮力的手动劳动的依赖，年轻人在杀害其主动性而不是滋养其损失的学校中喂食的武力以及损失的努力以及信任。

然而，生活，如果不希望的话，他继续在努利良的音乐和诗歌中蓬勃发展，阿尔加林补充说：

We have maintained our music, we have put down in New York something that is called salsa […] and, most importantly, we carry on the oral tradition – the tradition of expressing self in front of the tribe, in the front of the family. The holding force in that expression is a feeling and commitment that becomes the deepest bond of trust that we have going at the moment.

这就是语言和口头诗歌成为努利富文化的症结所在的症结，这是社区的“心理治疗”，从而使其从绝望的转变中赋予了一种充满活力的联系和可能性和可能性；阿尔加林写道，这就是Nuyorican诗歌咖啡馆成为庇护所“对于任何寻求艺术或寻求艺术来减轻他或她的人的庇护所”。

一个努利良的机构的演变

据认为，到70年代中期，努利裔诗人咖啡馆已成为“一种动态的文化现象”。纽约时报⁴。

Reporter David Vidal wrote that readings featured “a group of young artists whose writings reflect the anger, despair, pride, identity conflict and hopes of the children of the young marriage between New York and its Puerto Rican population of more than one million people,” and attracted growing audiences, mostly second- and third-generation Puerto Rican New Yorkers, but also outsiders, including poets of the Beat Generation, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs.

维达尔写道：“今天晚上在咖啡馆里大约是11点钟。”

康加鼓已经停止了，但他们的节奏间歇性地返回，添加了一点点吉他。当诗歌要求他们的时刻时，西班牙语和英语的动画谈话变得平静了……努利雅的心态是这里的集体经历，听众有时会通过“正确的呼喊！”来鼓励诗人。或“你明白了，姐姐。’”

仅仅二十年后，这种集体经验将涵盖新一代的口语表演者。建造违规行为迫使Nuyorican诗人在80年代初关闭，但到九年后重新开放时，诗歌大满贯比赛在全国范围内很受欢迎。Nuyorican诗人咖啡馆成为这种新的，对MTV的青年文化运动的代名词。

But for Puerto Rican-born poet and critic Urayoán Noel, “this Nuyorican crossover was by no means unproblematic.” In his article “Counter/Public Address: Nuyorican Poetics in the Slam Era,” Noel points to a 1993New York杂志的封面故事宣布“节拍回来”：

Although providing some helpful contextualizing for the general reader (for whom the Beats may well be the sole recognizable exemplar of performance poetry), such a coding, as [Nuyorian poet Ed] Morales suggests, risks diluting what was in fact a diverse, multiethnic and multicultural poetry community into little more than a neo-Beat revival.

In the ‘90s, Noel continued, the term “Nuyorican” was “deployed in its doubleness, to signal both its origins as an ethnic marker and its evolution as a multicultural poetics,” adding that it did so “at a price.”

通过口语的旅行表演，书籍和录音销售以及与MTV和HBO之类的合作伙伴关系，Nuyorican Poetics成为了凉爽的城市青年文化的品牌。这种跨界的演变导致了一种市场友好的民粹主义诗学，“不再仅仅是波多黎各人的财产，这引起了问题。”表达他们的侨民经历？”

For Noel, the original “promise of unfettered Nuyorican self-expression is now checked by two distinct but seemingly related trends: the commodification of slam and the gentrification of diaspora neighborhoods such as Harlem.”

最近的NPR代码开关piece from Manual Betancourt confirmed but did not resolve Noel’s concerns. According to Betancourt, the current incarnation of the Nuyorican Poets Café is situated “in the heart of an ever-gentrifying New York City neighborhood.” It exists as a tourist destination/cultural landmark/non-profit entity as well as a regular gathering spot for performers from diverse ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientations and gender identities who straddle the intersection between artists and activists.

As Betancourt wrote, “in the words of poet Portia Bartley…’the Café speaks to the marginalized, to anyone who's usually not granted a safe space to express themselves and speak on their experiences.’"

While this scene seems to embody Algarin’s original vision for the Nuyorican Poets Café as a home “for anyone looking for art or looking to art to relieve him or her,” does it, as Noel argued, come at the price of no longer belonging to the people who created it? What does this say about contemporary Nuyorican cultural identity – and the cultural identity of diasporic communities in general – and cultural appropriation?

从音乐，视频和诗歌到报纸，学术作品和书籍长度分析 - 可以使深度和细微差别进一步探索此类复杂问题。

Start exploring and request free library trials via the headings below。

进行进一步研究

文献在线溢价

在波多黎各人和努利奥里卡艺术家（包括Miguel Algarin，UrayoánNoel，Sandra Maria Esteves，Pedro Pietri和Ntozake Shange）中，有成千上万的全文诗歌，散文和批判作品 - 包括Miguel Algarin，UrayoánNoel，Sandra Maria Esteves，可以与其他文学探索，并轻松地与其他文学搜索在线提供的最包容性文本库的内容。Learn moreabout World Literature and Black Writing collections.

加勒比文学

With 100,000 pages of poems, drama, novels, stories, and related material, this online collection illuminates the history and culture of the Caribbean through literary works from the million and a half Africans, along with many Indians and South Asians, who were brought to the region between the 15th and 19th centuries.

非洲侨民1600-至今

The contributions, struggles, and identities of the African diaspora come to life through personal accounts, video, and primary sources in this global Black Studies collection that focuses on the migrations, communities, and ideologies of people in the Caribbean, Brazil, India, United Kingdom, and France.

在线音乐：当代世界音乐数据库

El Barrio: Gangsters, Latin Soul & The Birth Of Salsa 1967-75[流音频]。(2007). Fania Records. (2007).

Fania签名卷。3- Boogaloo[流音频]。（2006）。Fania Records。（2006）。

The Bad Boogaloo - Nu Yorican Sounds 1966-70[流音频]。(2007). Fania Records. (2007).

论文论文和全球论文

Alt, A. H. (2009).Nuyorican poetry: Identity and Representation（第1471754号订单）。

Bernard，R。A.（2006）。Nuyorganics: Understanding Organic Intellectualism Through Nuyorican Poetry(Order No. 3213139).

Negron, M. (2006).Hecho in Nuyorican: An Analysis of the Creation, Circulation, and Consumption of Salsa in 1970s New York(Order No. 3235304).

Rodriguez, Z. L. (2009).Writing to Survive: Nuyorican Literary and Cultural Performativities Across Genres in the 1970s and 1980s（第3374415号订单）。

Santamaria Lopez，C。M.（2011）。BoricuasIsleñosynuyorriqueños：LaConducciónDe识别Puertorriqueñasatravésdelapoesíade la calle(Order No. 3457030).

Ebook Central

Diaz, C. S. (2014).Our Nuyorican Thing: The Birth of a Self-Made Identity。Noel, U. (2014).在可见的运动中：六十年代到猛击。

Melendez，J。P.，＆Flores，J。“。（2012）。Hey yo! Yo soy! 40 Years of Nuyorican Street poetry : A Bilingual Edition。

Noel, U. (2014).In Visible Movement: Nuyorican Poetry from the Sixties to Slam。

Rivera, C. H., Hayd'e, R. C., & Torres-Padilla, J. L. (Eds.). (2011).写下连字符：波多黎各人侨民文学的新观点。

Thomas, L. (2010).波多黎各公民：二十世纪纽约市的历史和政治身份。

Notes:

1. 上市Broadcasting Service (PBS) (Producer). (2009).The Salsa Revolution[视频文件]。可从学术的Video Online。
2. Pellett, G., & Nelson, S. (Directors), & Pellett, G., & Nelson, S. (Producers). (1997).Shattering the Silences[视频文件]。加利福尼亚新闻。可从学术的Video Online。
3. Algarín，M。（1981）。Nuyorican Literature。梅勒斯，8（2），89-92。
4. 由D. V.（1976年5月14日）。'Nuyoricans' Express Pain and Joy in Poetry。《纽约时报》（1923年电流文件）。可从ProQuest Historical Newspapers。
5. UrayoánNoel。（2011）。柜台/公共地址：大满贯时代的努利富诗人。Latino Studies, 9(1), 38-61. Available fromPRISMA。
6. Betancourt, M. (2017).Nuyorican诗人咖啡馆, A Cauldron for Poetry and Politics。华盛顿：NPR。可从ProQuest Central。

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Courtney Suciu is ProQuest’s lead blog writer. Her loves include libraries, literacy and researching extraordinary stories related to the arts and humanities. She has a Master’s Degree in English literature and a background in teaching, journalism and marketing. Follow her @QuirkySuciu