{"id":31357,"date":"2013-05-27T21:47:25","date_gmt":"2013-05-27T21:47:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=31357"},"modified":"2013-05-27T21:47:25","modified_gmt":"2013-05-27T21:47:25","slug":"las-caras-lindas-to-be-black-and-puerto-rican-in-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=31357","title":{"rendered":"‘Las Caras Lindas’: To Be Black And Puerto Rican In 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘Las Caras Lindas’: To Be Black And Puerto Rican In 2013<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Code Switch: Frontiers of Race, Culture and Ethnicity<\/a>
\nNational Public Radio<\/a>
\n2013-05-25<\/p>\n

Jasmine Garsd<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am a black man
\nWho was born caf\u00e9 con leche
\nI sneaked into a party, to which I had not been invited.
\nAnd I got kicked out. They threw me out.
\nWhen I went back to have fun with the black girls
\nAll together they said ‘Maelo, go back to your white girls’
\nAnd they kicked me out. They threw me out.”<\/em><\/p>\n

– Ismael Rivera, “Niche<\/em>“<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In “Niche” (“Black Man”), iconic Puerto Rican singer Ismael Rivera<\/a> navigates the labyrinth of race and ethnicity in the Caribbean. A light-skinned “caf\u00e9 con leche” black man, he wanders through his island like a ghost of a colonial Spanish past, shooed off by both blacks and whites uncomfortable with his presence and what he represents.<\/p>\n

In another iconic and deeply melancholy song, “Las Caras Lindas” (or “The Beautiful Faces”), Rivera sets aside the discomfort and pens an ode to his people: “The beautiful faces of my black race, so much crying, pain and suffering, they are the challenges of life, but inside we carry so much love.”<\/p>\n

I was recently in Puerto Rico reporting on the island’s troubled economy and reignited diaspora<\/a>. During that time, I had the chance to visit legendary rapper Tego Calder\u00f3n<\/a>. In his studio in Santurce, Puerto Rico<\/a>, I found the entire place wallpapered with photographs of Ismael Rivera…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘Las Caras Lindas’: To Be Black And Puerto Rican In 2013 Code Switch: Frontiers of Race, Culture and Ethnicity National Public Radio 2013-05-25 Jasmine Garsd I am a black man Who was born caf\u00e9 con leche I sneaked into a party, to which I had not been invited. And I got kicked out. They threw […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,21,14646,8,20],"tags":[14788,14786,14785,1392,2309,2833,2654,14787],"class_list":["post-31357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-latincarib","category-latino","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-code-switch","tag-ismael-rivera","tag-jasmine-garsd","tag-music","tag-national-public-radio","tag-npr","tag-puerto-rico","tag-tego-calderon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31357\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}