Palabra Pura: “The Diaspora Daughters Speak”

Afro-Latino(a)s/Caribbeans are challenged to reconcile what are seen as conflicting identities. The Guild Literary Complex sheds poetic light on the topic with “The Diaspora Daughters Speak,” the July installment of our monthly bilingual poetry series Palabra Pura, curated by Sandra Posados and featuring poets Yolanda Nieves and Maya Emma Nnena Ruth Odim (Maya Odim). “The Diaspora Daughters Speak” takes place Wednesday, July 17, 2013, at 7:30 PM at La Bruquena restaurant, 2726 W. Division. The program will be spoken in English and Spanish. Admission is free.

Issues of identity are at the core of the Afro-Latino(a)/Caribbean experience in the United States. Sometimes seen by Latino(a)s as a novelty, Afro-Latino(a)s get asked, “Where did you learn to speak Spanish?” Meanwhile, whites confuse black Latino(a)s for being African-American. And if an Afro-Latino(a) is light skinned the reality of African roots is not recognized by many family members. July’s Palabra Pura encourages Latino(a)s to redress this conflict. As curator Posado notes, “We are ‘Latino(a)’ regardless of where we fall on the color spectrum. In their own words, these empowered, self-affirming, educated Afro-Latinas/Caribbean poets [will] share their professional and personal experiences of living with a changing, often contested identity in a racialized society.”

Sandra Posadas is an educator, artist/illustrator, and actress. She holds a B.A. from Roosevelt University and an M.A. in bilingual/bicultural Education from DePaul University. Posadas has performed across the city, most notably as part of The Brown Girls’ Chronicles.

Yolanda Nieves is an educator, writer, and performer. Nieves is an Assistant Professor in English at Wilbur Wright College Chicago and the creative director of The Vida Bella Ensemble. She won the American Educational Research Association’s 2010 Arts-Based Dissertation of the Year Award for the performance-text, The Brown Girls’ Chronicles:  Puerto Rican Women & Resilience. 

Maya Emma Nnena Ruth Odim (Maya Odim) is an artist, educator, and author of a collection of poems titled: Planets, Gourds and Traveling Staffs. As a facilitator and co-facilitator she has experience giving creative writing, poetry and spoken word workshops, as well as Latin Dance and Break Dance workshops, in many spaces in the city of Chicago and the state of Connecticut.