¡MANTECA!: AN ANTHOLOGY OF AFRO-LATINO POETRY
Poetry. Music. HistoryMelissa's has been scholar in the field of Afro-Latin@ studies for the last 10 years, emerging as a historian whose work uncovered that Latinidad of Marcus Garvey's United Negro Improvement Association in a transnational context. In addition to her work as editor of Manteca!: An Anthology of Afro-Latin@ Poets (Arte Público Press), her work on hip hop, as guest editor of a Special Issue on Brazilian Hip Hop for Words. Beats. Life.: The Global Journal of Hip Hop Culture as well as co-editor of La Verdad: A Reader of Hip Hop Latinidades (October 2016, Ohio State University Press) demonstrate her attention to the import contributions of African cultures in Latin America.
Melissa also published a book on Mexican cultural productions in NYC given the current climate of service sector labor, globalization, immigration policies and policing practices in order to rethink the meaning of border/ borderlands. Significantly, this project's starting point is a consideration of the legacy of the commodification of black bodies during middle passage and the importance of New York City as a former port city of the slave trade. Theoretically, it is an attempt to put into conversation the oft-distant fields of Chicano and African American studies to gain a deeper understanding of our contemporary context. Melissa is also currently researching her next book, a history of 1920s and 1930 Afro-Latino New York City, with chapters exploring the UNIA, East Harlem Literary scene, Brooklyn socialists and Puerto Rican nationalist movements and pre-mambo music in the Bronx. Learn more about a history of teaching, researching and celebrating Afro-Latinidades below. |
The First of Its Kind
An Anthology of Afro-Latin@ Poetry Following the work of Juan Flores and Miriam Román Jimenez’s groundbreaking Afro-Latin@ Reader (Duke UP, 2010), this edited volume of poetry represents both the emerging field of US Afro-Latino Studies and recognizes the long history and important contributions of Afro-descended Latinos in this country. By focusing on Afro-Latino poets, this collection strives to highlight an important but often neglected aspect of US poetry: that Afro-Latino poets are a key part of poetic expression and innovation that is uniquely (North) American. An important contribution of this anthology is to break the often rigid boundaries between Latino and African American poetry, to simultaneously center blackness as an important aspect of Latino poetry and Latinidad as crucial to African American poetry. The Anthology highlights the work of more than 40 poets including: Miguel Algarín, Josefina Báez, Sandra Maria Esteves, Mariposa, Aracelis Girmay, Victor Hernández Cruz, Tato Laviera, Raina J. León, Jesús Papoleto Meléndez, John Murillo, Willie Perdomo, Louis Reyes Rivera, Bonafide Rojas, Mayra Santos-Febres, Lorenzo Thomas, Shaggy Flores, Raquel Penzo, Ariana Brown, Peggy Robles-Alvarado, Natalie Caro, Joaquin Zihuatanejo, Noel Quiñones, Gabriel Ramirez, Carmen Bardeguez-Brown, and others.
Books & Book Chapters: Editor. Manteca!: An Anthology of Afro-Latin@ Poets. Arte Público Press, April 2017). Co-Editor. La Verdad: The International Reader of Hip-Hop Latinidades. (Ohio State University Press, Global Latino/a Series, October 2016) The Blackness of Latinidad: Afro-Latinas at the Borderlands of New York City (book): Supported by Cycle 50 PSC-CUNY Research Award (in Progress) “Blurring Genres, Blurring Borders: Contemporary Poetic Memoirs of Afro-Dominicanas in the United States” (Book Chapter): AfroLatinas/LatiNegras: Culture, Identity, and Struggle from an Intersectional Perspective. Concetta Bondi and Rosita Scerbo editors, Lexington Books, 2022. "Afro-Latin@ Nueva York: Maymie de Mena and the Unsung Afro-Latina Leadership of the UNIA." Afro-Latinos in Movement: Critical Approaches to Blackness and Transnationalism in the Americas. Petra R. Rivera-Rideau (Virginia Tech), Jennifer A. Jones (Notre Dame), Tianna S. Paschel (University of Chicago) editors. Palsgrave Macmillan, May 2016. |
Scholarly & Encyclopedia Articles:
“Superheroine Latinidad: The Diasporic Identities of America Chavez & La Borinqueña.” The Journal of Popular Culture (Oct. 1, 2021).
“Aiken, Maymie (Madame de Mena).” Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography. Editors in chief Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Franklin K. Knight. London: Oxford Press, 2015.
"Embranquecimento: Whitening in the Harlem Renaissance and The Brazil Solution." Lengua y Literatura. 8.1 (2013).
Invited Lectures:
“Somos Guerreras: Feminisms Across Latin American and Diasporic Creatives.” Program on Latin America and the Caribbean, Syracuse University (Feb. 7, 2022).
“Cafecito: Touchstones of Cultural Identity.” Presentation for Univision (Oct. 13, 2020).
“Afro-Latin@ Nueva York: Maymie de Mena and the Unsung Afro-Latina Leadership of the UNIA." University of Notre Dame (October 31, 2014); University of Chicago (October 30, 2014).
“The New Urban Aesthetics: The Black Arts Movement, Revised.” Harlem Book Fair Invited Panelist (July 12, 2014). Broadcast Live on C-SPAN 2.
“A Commitment to Rap: A Brazilian answer to mainstream Hip Hop." Syracuse University (Oct. 11, 2010).
"Brazil: The Other Latino Immigrants." Guest lecturer for "History Makers” (July 2010): Three hour lecture and class given at summer program for gifted High School students, Fordham University, July 2010.
Conference Presentations:
Latin American Studies Association, VIA ZOOM (May 26, 2021): Session Presenter: “Covid Across Borders.” Session Chair: “Afro-Latinidades: Past, Present, Future.”Latin American Studies Association, Chicago, IL (May 21-24, 2014): “A Black Nueva York: Afro-Latinos and The Spanish Section of The Negro World.”
Association for the Study of the World Wide African Diaspora Conference, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (Oct. 30-Nov 2, 2013). “Afro-Latin@ Nueva York: Afro-Latinas and the UNIA”
American Studies Association Conference, San Juan, Puerto Rico (Nov. 15-18, 2012): "The Blackness of Latinidad: Afro-Latinos and the United Negro Improvement Association"
Association for the Study of the World Wide African Diaspora Conference, University of Pittsburg (Nov. 3-6, 2011): “Fiery and Spellbinding: Maymie de Mena and the Unsung Afro-Latina Leadership of the UNIA.”
