As huracán season approaches, the political and social climate in Puerto Rico continue to deteriorate, making it increasingly urgent that the current regime of the misnamed New Progressive Party (PNP) be dismantled in the fall elections. Consider this tweet, featured in the current edition of Noticel. In mangled English, sent out by Heidi Anne Wys, […]
Read moreRodriguez Schools Me in the Cold Facts
Meeting Rodriguez, dressed head to toe in black and wearing sunglasses seemingly designed to protect him from the glare of a Western sunset, is like meeting a super-hip uncle you never knew you had. He presents the crinkled hand that looks like it has lifted a thousand cinder blocks and strummed endless gentle guitar chords, and […]
Read morePhoto ID Laws the Real Reason for Invalidating PR Birth Certificates?
Perhaps you remember the mini-controversy engendered by the ridiculously unnecessary law enacted by Puerto Rico’s PNP government in 2010 that invalidated all Puerto Rican birth certificates and gave anyone born in Puerto Rico the burden of getting a new one at the cost of $5 a pop (excluding those on government assistance and senior citizens)? […]
Read moreTito Kayak’s Repeating Islands
The last couple of weeks, legendary Puerto Rican activist Tito Kayak has been re-creating the centuries-old migratory voyage made by indigenous people from Venezuela to the Greater Antilles to draw attention to the imprisonment of Puerto Rican Independence activist Oscar López Rivera. Imprisoned for “seditious conspiracy” López Rivera has been behind bars for over 30 […]
Read moreI Am Quoted Suggesting Band Names for Nuria Net
This is a very big story because representing with my fellow colleagues in the industry (most notably the fabulous nuria) is slammin. I think I could come up with some more bands I wish were here, but let me get back to you. And I forgot to include the word “tropical” in my style description, […]
Read moreLAMC Comes to New York This Week!
Wouldn’t it be great if large parts of the Latin Alternative Music Conference were pre-empted by Jean Luc Godard filming the Jefferson Airplane playing “House at Pooneil Corners” and then the police came to break it up?
Read moreOliver Stone’s Noble “Savages”
You don’t want to mess with her: Salma’s Elena in Savages is merciless. For those of you who had visions of Tony Montana brandishing a machine gun over a pile of cocaine, Oliver Stone’s Savages is not exactly a classic gangster flick. Snarkily delivered moral lessons about the Drug War aside, it’s mostly a murky mess of barely distinguishable genres, propelled […]
Read moreImpunity Island: PR Government in Denial About Police Problems
Puerto Rico: Rampant police brutality on ‘impunity island’ A new report exposes police brutality cases in Puerto Rico. Here, Betty Peña and her 17-year-old daughter Elisa Ramos Peña get doused with tear gas at a peaceful 2010 protest. By ED MORALES It doesn’t exactly paint the picture of “La Isla del Encanto.” But in “Island of Impunity: […]
Read moreLatinos in the News (For All the Wrong Reasons)
We’re all a little weary of Latinos popping up in news reports all around the country as perpetrators of petty crimes and tacky behavior, you know, the kind of low-rent antics that if they were white would be referred to as “trailer-trash” stuff. (The latter of course not a laughing matter I guess because for […]
Read moreHuffington Post Latino Voices Links to a Story About Me!
Hey wait a minute! Maybe that thumb is shifting a little bit, a few degrees north. Perhaps I’ve been unfair in the past. Perhaps this is a fine example of English-language journalism about Latinos after all. La vida te da sorpresas. Gimme that ol’ time narcissism! The Nuyorican Poets Café, in the Words of Ed Morales, Author, […]
Read more
ED MORALES 