WEBVTT

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OK, I just would like to read
now some parts of this novel

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which just came out, published
recently by Farrar Straus,

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and which will come out
in Spanish in January with

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the same title like
Vecindarios Excéntricos.

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Can I have a little
bit of water?

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Wow, this is water in
the middle of the desert.

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[LAUGHING]

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OK.

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This novel is a family saga,
and it covers 100 years.

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When I started writing
it three years ago,

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I didn't really think.

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I didn't plan to finish it.

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Six months ago,
it just happened.

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But everybody thinks I did
it to celebrate the 100

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years of the arrival of the
American troops in Puerto Rico,

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but it was not
like that, I swear.

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[LAUGHTER] It is
just a coincidence.

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So actually, the
title refers to--

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eccentric neighborhoods
refers to the fact

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that Puerto Rico is an
eccentric neighborhood.

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It is kind of off
the beaten path.

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It is strange.

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It is unique.

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It is exotic, and it
has also no center.

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We're an island which is
always coming and going.

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We are a people who are in a
way living between two worlds,

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and this is the meaning
of the title, "eccentric."

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It's not just that it's
strange, but that it really

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has no center, or that it
is off-center that also

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in another sense more
positive perhaps.

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It is a frontier,
which is what I really

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would like to underline because
I think it's very important.

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I was trying to underline
that in the poem

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I read to you as
language-current because I

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believe it's one of the
realities of the modern world

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that we're living in, that we
have to deal with the fact that

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being a frontier, you
don't have to live right

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in the frontier between
Mexico and Puerto

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Rico, or between
Mexico and the States,

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or Puerto Rico and the
Dominican Republic,

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which would be our
northern neighbor.

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I mean, as long as
you live in a place

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where there are many cultural
elements and ethnic elements

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living together, you are
living in a frontier.

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And you have to
deal with the fact

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of cohabitation and harmonious
understanding of all

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these different minds
that are contributing

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to the richness of the sense
of place that you have.

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This novel is a lot
about a sense of place,

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and, I mean, it is in the
title, Eccentric Neighborhoods.

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It also refers to the fact
that the place determines

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the character of the people.

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And that's what I meant when
Puerto Ricans are always

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coming and going
and therefore have

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the search, constant search
for meaning of their identity.

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We're always looking for
the meaning of what we are.

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I always say that Puerto
Ricans are like Hamlets.

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We're always looking
around to find out

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whether we are going
to be or we are not

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going to be this or that.

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[LAUGHTER] And it is
sort of like a way--

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I mean, to be a Puerto
Rican is a state of mind

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more than just a place.

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It is a place, and it
is also a state of mind.

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So first, I will read to
you from the first part

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of the novel.

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The novel is divided
in two parts.

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And the first part
refers to a family

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which lives from the
sugarcane production and who

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own a sugarcane hacienda,
sort of repeating

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the same thing that many
of you may have studied

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in Maldito Amor, which is
translated as Sweet Diamond

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Dust.

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That same theme is
retaken in this novel

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and expanded and taken over
to the next step, which

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would be the industrialization
of the island.

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So the second part
of the novel has

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to do with the
development of industry

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and to the presence
of the United States

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and the modern world
in an island which

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had been a very feudal in a way,
feudal agricultural society.

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