ED MORALES

A new, possibly game-changing element will be a feature of the elections in Puerto Rico this November. The Citizens Victory Movement and the Puerto Rico Independence Party will form a coalition (called La Alianza) to pool their growing constituency in an attempt to further erode, if not destroy the existing two-party system comprised of the pro-statehood New […]

Recently, the Chicanx/Latinx Law Review published an article I wrote about the debate over the term Latinx. Here it is:

Hanging out with Victor Hernández Cruz in Adela’s on Avenue C is a little like visiting a temple or shrine of Nuyorico. He holds court with a kind of deadpanning prophesy, like an oracle descended from Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico by way of Loisaida. His eyes widen as the ensalada de aguacate and plátanos maduros […]

As he worked his way through a rice bowl at a Japanese restaurant near Columbus Circle in Manhattan on a recent afternoon, the bassist, composer and arranger Carlos Henriquez reflected on the long history of Latino musicians in the jazz world. “In the 1920s, there was a bassist and tuba player called Ralph Escudero who used to […]

Though it has been law since 1917, the nature of US citizenship for those born in the US territory of Puerto Rico has always been murky.Puerto Ricans could serve in the US armed forces, but were denied the right to vote for president; the island is a territory of the US, but has never been a […]

Pepe Flores is a swirling ball of energy, usually dressed in a guayabera, bowtie, and some variation of fedora or Yoruban fila on his head, always looking to manifest some flash of the spirit to capture what’s left of the Latinx Lower East Side, or Loisaida. Most often you’ll run into him prowling along Avenue […]

In her first week as governor of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared the use of the word “Latinx” must be eliminated from official government document use. Her executive order “to respect the Latino community by eliminating culturally insensitive words from official use in government” is part of a thinly disguised “anti-woke” agenda adopted by a number of conservative Republicans. […]

In the fall of 1947, Dizzy Gillespie called on his friend, the trumpeter-arranger Mario Bauzá, in search of a conga player for an upcoming Carnegie Hall concert where he planned to debut songs exploring the connection between Afro-Cuban music and jazz. Bauzá suggested Chano Pozo, a swaggering master of Yoruba rhythms, who had just arrived from Cuba. […]

Pablo Milanés, who died in Madrid this week at 79, left behind a body of work that was deeply personal even as he navigated one of the 20th century’s most tumultuous political experiments, the Cuban Revolution. His career was an open dialogue with the revolutionary government that had once disciplined him, then propped him up as one […]