WEBVTT

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Gracias a ti.

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I also want to thank
Frank who blew me away.

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And Vanessa I'm still sort
of reeling from that reading.

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And I also wanted
to mention, Diana,

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that your book also was
one of the last books I

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read last year.

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I found it incredible.

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And I wish more people had
mentioned it because I'm

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kind of [INAUDIBLE].

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Always grateful for that.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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So, yeah, let's
start with what--

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Yeah, why don't we play a song?

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Why don't we play a song?

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So we're going to go ahead.

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I'm going to start
on my computer

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a really beautiful
piece that Raquel sent.

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They will introduce it.

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And I'm going to
go ahead and work

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on getting it playing so we
can hear this beautiful melody.

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(SINGING) El ganado
se ve inquieto.

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El cielo es duro concreto.

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El aire está suspendido.

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No se escucha ni un silencio.

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Todo anuncia el tormento,
toda esa ansiedad.

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El cielo es duro concreto.

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Ya se espera el gran timbrazo.

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Llega el temporal.

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Tiempo ya tiempo da.

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Ya te viene el temporal.

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Tiempo viene.

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Tiempo va.

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Allá viene el temporal.

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Tiempo tienes.

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Tiempo das.

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Va y viene temporal.

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¿Qué será de mi borinquen
cuando esté a capacidad?

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¿Qué será de Puerto Rico
cuando no nos quede más?

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Tiempo ya, tiempo da.

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Ya te viene el temporal.

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Tiempo viene.

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Tiempo va.

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Allá viene temporal.

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Tiempo viene.

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Tiempo va.

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Allá viene el temporal.

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Todo el pueblo está reunido
en la cárcel más cerrada.

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Algunos están rezando.

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Dios mío, todo esto
está en la mala.

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Tiempo ya, tiempo da.

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Ya te viene el temporal.

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Tiempo viene.

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Tiempo va.

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Allá viene el temporal.

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Tiempo tienes.

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Tiempo das.

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Va y viene el temporal.

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¿Qué será de mi borinquen
cuando esté a capacidad?

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¿Qué será de Puerto Rico
cuando no nos quede más?

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Los hombres están condenados.

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Las puertas y las ventanas
hallaron más encerrados,

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la esperanza para mañana.

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Los viejos van comentando
de temporales pasados,

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los jóvenes escuchando.

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Hoy los suyos comenzaron.

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Santa María,
líbranos de todo mal.

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Ampáranos, señora, de
este terrible temporal.

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Santa María,
líbranos de todo mal.

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Ampáranos, señora, de
este terrible animal.

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Santa María,
líbranos de todo mal.

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Ampáranos, señora, de
ese terrible animal.

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Thank you, Raquel, for
bringing that to the table.

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It was something that I
think was really profound.

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And I'd love to hear a
few words about that song

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and what it means and why you
thought to bring it and share

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it with us today.

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Thank you so much
for playing that.

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It's actually a
very popular plena,

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which is the type of
music in Puerto Rico, that

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along with Bomba was a music
created invented and kept alive

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by enslaved people
but then became

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a sort of more generalized
popular form of music.

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And for a long time even
as it grew in popularity

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was still very rejected by the
wealthy and the bourgeoisie

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in Puerto Rico as a
music that you would

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play in cafetines or bars.

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Or it was lowly music.

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And now it's much like
other popular forms of music

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created by enslaved peoples.

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Now it's legit and
considered legit and whatnot.

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Everyone plays it at Christmas.

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And everyone knows it.

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So this is a very popular
plena called "Temporal."

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And part of what I
did for this project

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in one particular section was
to re-imagine these plenas

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but in reference to the carceral
system and in particular

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to the Oso Blanco
penitentiary, which is what I

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decided to focus my writing on.

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And so this is my
rewriting of "Temporal"

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written right from within el Oso
Blanco, from that perspective.

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And I guess it's an
introduction to what I'm

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going to be reading I wanted to
say that this is historically

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situated as a sort of journey
through the early years

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of the creation of el
Oso Blanco, el Oso Blanco

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penitentiary, or White Bear.

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I'm going to share the
screen here a moment.

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I translate it in a variety
of different ways in part

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because the name comes from
the type of concrete that was

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used to build the penitentiary.

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And this concrete
was from Venezuela.

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And the company was
called Oso Blanco.

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And it marked a very
important moment

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in the modernization projects
of the early 20th century

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in Puerto Rico.

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And so the prison was seen as
a model for how Puerto Rico was

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being modernized.

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And, of course, as I went
delved deeper and deeper

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into the investigation,
of course,

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all of these very intense
of facts and coincidences

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that aren't really
coincidences, came up among them

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that the prisoners
built the prison.

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And that as part of the
original plan and the original

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build of the prison, it had an
interior courtyard and a garden

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and was sort of-- the
plans were laid out

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and structured like a Spanish
Plaza, a Spanish city.

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And so here get layered all
of these layers of colonialism

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and the history of
slavery and colonialism

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in Puerto Rico from
Spain to the US.

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So I'm going to--

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yeah, instead of
explaining all of it,

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I'm just going to delve in.

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One other thing
to keep in mind is

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that there's a character that
is this sort of central figure

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that moves through this text
and that character is Cenex.

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Which is a character that's
appeared in other of my works.

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Cenex comes from Caeneus.

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It's actually one of
the few trans figures

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and owes its metamorphosis--

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who was granted a transition
after being raped by Poseidon.

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So Poseidon said I grant you
a wish in exchange for this.

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And the thing that
Caeneus wished for

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was to be turned into a man.

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And I changed this a little bit
into a sort of nonbinary figure

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that is incarcerated
in a male prison,

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in a man's prison,
which was el Oso Blanco.

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And one more thing
before we go on.

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Part of the reason why
I chose el Oso Blanco--

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it's been shut down
for a long time.

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There have been these
efforts to restructure it

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because it was built by--

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or to rescue it as
a historical site

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because it was built by a
very important architect.

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And all of this was
very striking to me,

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this sort of fixation with
the architecture rather than

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the fact that it was a prison,
this it's a historical space

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argument.

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And the arc of its construction
and also its decay very much

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follows the arc of
the establishment

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of Puerto Rico as Estado Libre
Asociado, English Commonwealth.

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But really this translation
would be free associated

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state, which is part of
the modernization projects

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and that arc created
by Luis Muñoz Marín

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and its inevitable collapse.

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And so what we're
living in is right now

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like late capitalist post
collapse of Estado Libre

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Asociado space in which there
are all these old buildings

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that had been built as part of
modernization that are in decay

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but also that carry those
ghosts, much like Puerto Rico

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right now where we have these
layering of ghosts and ghosts

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and ghosts.

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And it also happens
to be very, very close

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to where my father lived.

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He passed away
this last November.

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And so it's very close
to heart as a project

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because as I was writing this, I
had been collaborating with him

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because he had worked actually
for the carceral system

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as a lawyer.

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And so it has been a very
complex sort of relationship

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to that and sort of talking
through what that had been.

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And he was very familiar
with el Oso Blanco.

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And so his passing away
felt like it was very

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tied into this project.

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OK, enough talking.

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Enough introductions.