Manteca! an Anthology of Afro-Latin@ Poets by Melissa Castillo Planas

Learn more about a history of teaching, researching and celebrating Afro-Latinidades below.

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.

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.

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. Melissa recently completed a dissertation 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. Life.: The Global Journal of Hip Hop Culture as well as co-editor of L a 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. In addition to her work as editor of Manteca!: An Anthology of Poets (Arte Público Press), her work on hip hop, as guest editor of a Special Issue on Brazilian Hip Hop for Words.

August 12: Melissa Castillo Planas Features at Sto.Melissa's has been scholar in the field of studies for the last 5 years, emerging as a historian whose work uncovered that Latinidad of Marcus Garvey's United Negro Improvement Association in a transnational context.

Join host Chad Parenteau on August 12 from 7:00 to 9:00 PM ET by clicking this link. Her current poetry book project, Chingona Rules explores Mexican American identity, love, loss and mental illness. Her most recent book project, with Rutgers University Press’ new Global Race and Media series (March 2020), A Mexican State of Mind: New York City and the New Borderlands of Culture, examines the creative worlds and cultural productions of Mexican migrants in New York City. She is the author of the poetry collection Coatlicue Eats the Apple, editor of the anthology, ¡Manteca!: An Anthology of Poets, co-editor of La Verdad: An International Dialogue on Hip Hop Latinidades and co-author of the novel, Pure Bronx. Melissa Castillo Planas is an Assistant Professor of English at Lehman College in the Bronx, NY specializing in Latinx Literature and Culture. Wednesday, August 12 Stone Soup has the pleasure of welcoming back Melissa Castillo Planas.ĭr. This continues to receive an amazing response, and we appreciate everyone's participation. Amidst the global pandemic, Stone Soup Poetry has been offering an online open mic via Zoom for anyone

Manteca! an Anthology of Afro-Latin@ Poets by Melissa Castillo Planas