Gracias a ti.
I also want to thank Frank who blew me away.
And Vanessa I'm still sort of reeling from that reading.
And I also wanted to mention, Diana,
that your book also was one of the last books I
read last year.
I found it incredible.
And I wish more people had mentioned it because I'm
kind of [INAUDIBLE].
Always grateful for that.
Thank you.
So, yeah, let's start with what--
Yeah, why don't we play a song?
Why don't we play a song?
So we're going to go ahead.
I'm going to start on my computer
a really beautiful piece that Raquel sent.
They will introduce it.
And I'm going to go ahead and work
on getting it playing so we can hear this beautiful melody.
(SINGING) El ganado se ve inquieto.
El cielo es duro concreto.
El aire está suspendido.
No se escucha ni un silencio.
Todo anuncia el tormento, toda esa ansiedad.
El cielo es duro concreto.
Ya se espera el gran timbrazo.
Llega el temporal.
Tiempo ya tiempo da.
Ya te viene el temporal.
Tiempo viene.
Tiempo va.
Allá viene el temporal.
Tiempo tienes.
Tiempo das.
Va y viene temporal.
¿Qué será de mi borinquen cuando esté a capacidad?
¿Qué será de Puerto Rico cuando no nos quede más?
Tiempo ya, tiempo da.
Ya te viene el temporal.
Tiempo viene.
Tiempo va.
Allá viene temporal.
Tiempo viene.
Tiempo va.
Allá viene el temporal.
Todo el pueblo está reunido en la cárcel más cerrada.
Algunos están rezando.
Dios mío, todo esto está en la mala.
Tiempo ya, tiempo da.
Ya te viene el temporal.
Tiempo viene.
Tiempo va.
Allá viene el temporal.
Tiempo tienes.
Tiempo das.
Va y viene el temporal.
¿Qué será de mi borinquen cuando esté a capacidad?
¿Qué será de Puerto Rico cuando no nos quede más?
Los hombres están condenados.
Las puertas y las ventanas hallaron más encerrados,
la esperanza para mañana.
Los viejos van comentando de temporales pasados,
los jóvenes escuchando.
Hoy los suyos comenzaron.
Santa María, líbranos de todo mal.
Ampáranos, señora, de este terrible temporal.
Santa María, líbranos de todo mal.
Ampáranos, señora, de este terrible animal.
Santa María, líbranos de todo mal.
Ampáranos, señora, de ese terrible animal.
Thank you, Raquel, for bringing that to the table.
It was something that I think was really profound.
And I'd love to hear a few words about that song
and what it means and why you thought to bring it and share
it with us today.
Thank you so much for playing that.
It's actually a very popular plena,
which is the type of music in Puerto Rico, that
along with Bomba was a music created invented and kept alive
by enslaved people but then became
a sort of more generalized popular form of music.
And for a long time even as it grew in popularity
was still very rejected by the wealthy and the bourgeoisie
in Puerto Rico as a music that you would
play in cafetines or bars.
Or it was lowly music.
And now it's much like other popular forms of music
created by enslaved peoples.
Now it's legit and considered legit and whatnot.
Everyone plays it at Christmas.
And everyone knows it.
So this is a very popular plena called "Temporal."
And part of what I did for this project
in one particular section was to re-imagine these plenas
but in reference to the carceral system and in particular
to the Oso Blanco penitentiary, which is what I
decided to focus my writing on.
And so this is my rewriting of "Temporal"
written right from within el Oso Blanco, from that perspective.
And I guess it's an introduction to what I'm
going to be reading I wanted to say that this is historically
situated as a sort of journey through the early years
of the creation of el Oso Blanco, el Oso Blanco
penitentiary, or White Bear.
I'm going to share the screen here a moment.
I translate it in a variety of different ways in part
because the name comes from the type of concrete that was
used to build the penitentiary.
And this concrete was from Venezuela.
And the company was called Oso Blanco.
And it marked a very important moment
in the modernization projects of the early 20th century
in Puerto Rico.
And so the prison was seen as a model for how Puerto Rico was
being modernized.
And, of course, as I went delved deeper and deeper
into the investigation, of course,
all of these very intense of facts and coincidences
that aren't really coincidences, came up among them
that the prisoners built the prison.
And that as part of the original plan and the original
build of the prison, it had an interior courtyard and a garden
and was sort of-- the plans were laid out
and structured like a Spanish Plaza, a Spanish city.
And so here get layered all of these layers of colonialism
and the history of slavery and colonialism
in Puerto Rico from Spain to the US.
So I'm going to--
yeah, instead of explaining all of it,
I'm just going to delve in.
One other thing to keep in mind is
that there's a character that is this sort of central figure
that moves through this text and that character is Cenex.
Which is a character that's appeared in other of my works.
Cenex comes from Caeneus.
It's actually one of the few trans figures
and owes its metamorphosis--
who was granted a transition after being raped by Poseidon.
So Poseidon said I grant you a wish in exchange for this.
And the thing that Caeneus wished for
was to be turned into a man.
And I changed this a little bit into a sort of nonbinary figure
that is incarcerated in a male prison,
in a man's prison, which was el Oso Blanco.
And one more thing before we go on.
Part of the reason why I chose el Oso Blanco--
it's been shut down for a long time.
There have been these efforts to restructure it
because it was built by--
or to rescue it as a historical site
because it was built by a very important architect.
And all of this was very striking to me,
this sort of fixation with the architecture rather than
the fact that it was a prison, this it's a historical space
argument.
And the arc of its construction and also its decay very much
follows the arc of the establishment
of Puerto Rico as Estado Libre Asociado, English Commonwealth.
But really this translation would be free associated
state, which is part of the modernization projects
and that arc created by Luis Muñoz Marín
and its inevitable collapse.
And so what we're living in is right now
like late capitalist post collapse of Estado Libre
Asociado space in which there are all these old buildings
that had been built as part of modernization that are in decay
but also that carry those ghosts, much like Puerto Rico
right now where we have these layering of ghosts and ghosts
and ghosts.
And it also happens to be very, very close
to where my father lived.
He passed away this last November.
And so it's very close to heart as a project
because as I was writing this, I had been collaborating with him
because he had worked actually for the carceral system
as a lawyer.
And so it has been a very complex sort of relationship
to that and sort of talking through what that had been.
And he was very familiar with el Oso Blanco.
And so his passing away felt like it was very
tied into this project.
OK, enough talking.
Enough introductions.