Timelines

Migration is a natural part of living systems, and human history is no exception. Yet it remains one of the most debated public issues of our time.

Both people and borders move. Who is allowed to move, and who is granted rights, lies at the heart of how nations define belonging. In Germany and the United States alike, these debates have been deeply intertwined with evolving ideas of race and ethnicity.

These timelines trace how citizenship and belonging have been constructed, challenged, and redefined through laws, social movements, global events, and cultural works — and how those histories continue to shape the present.

1968

1974

Nuyorican Movement Celebrates New York-Puerto Rican Culture

In the late 1960s, a community of Puerto Rican immigrants in New York—who began arriving in the mid-1800s following the Spanish-American War (see also: New Colonies & Territories Shape Migration, 1898) —sparked an intellectual movement to reflect the experience of Puerto Ricans facing discrimination and marginalization.

From the cafes of their Lower East Side, East Harlem, and South Bronx neighborhoods, New York-Puerto Rican writers, artists, and musicians adopted the moniker “Nuyorican.” The Nuyorican Poets Café and El Museo del Barrio became pulpits for icons like Jesus Colon, Pedro Pietri, and Miguel Algarin to produce art, literature, and music celebrating the Nuyorican experience and raising visibility and appreciation of Nuyorican culture.

V.
Mature Masculinity

Welcome the responsibility to do the work of building verbs, adjectives
and nouns for mortality and its subsequent eternal breaking of concrete.

- Miguel Algarin

HIV(1994)

nytimes.com

Miguel Algarín, wearing a V-neck, with fellow poets outside the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in 1976.

Miguel Algarín was a poet and leading figure in the Nuyorican Movement of the 1970s. Cofounding the Nuyorican Poets Cafe alongside Pedro Pietri and Miguel Piñero, they created a new, revolutionary space for young Puerto Rican poets to express themselves beyond the stereotypes given to them. Algarín was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, and moved with his family to New York City in the early 1950s where his literary expression only grew in the streets of New York. Later in his life during the 1990s, he and Bob Holman created the second iteration of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe which expanded from an ethnic-specific venue to a venue that included those from the feminist movement, the LGBTQ movement, and more. On December 1st, 2020, Miguel Algarin passed away at the age of 79. His impact on the Puerto Rican community and poetry world can be felt globally every day.

United States

Sources

History & Awards. Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Date accessed: September 11, 2015.
Every Child Born a Poet, The Life and Work of Piri Thomas: Nuyorican Literature. PBS. Date accessed: September 11, 2015.

Additional Resources

The Nuyorican Poets Café. Date accessed: June 17, 2015.
El Museo del Barrio. Date accessed: June 17, 2015.
Every Child Born a Poet, The Life and Work of Piri Thomas: The Poems. Date accessed: March 8, 2015.
Puerto Rican Writing in the United States (Concise encyclopedia of Latin American literature). Edited by Verity Smith. London: Fitzroy Dearborn. Pages 514-17.
Urayoán Noel. In visible movement: Nuyorican poetry from the Sixties to slam. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.

Related Events

1898

New Colonies & Territories Shape Migration

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