January 18, 2022

Roll Call: What the Water Carries?

58 minutes

Show Description

Can any label or identity explain our freedom, our community or history? How do you identify and what does it mean? In this special episode with Jasminne Mendez, Darrel Alejandro Holnes and Raina J. León explores the fluidity of terms and identity as Black Latinx,o,e,a people from the diaspora. Work featured by Toni Morrison, Aracelis Girmay, Alan Pelaez Lopez and Elizabeth Acevedo. Episode produced by Cin Pimentel. Transcription by Victor Jackson.

Show Notes

Social Media for Darrel - @blackboytraveljoy (Insta) and darrelholnes.com (website)

Books: Stepmotherland (Notre Dame University Press, 2022); Migrant Psalms (Northwestern University Press, 2021)

Social Media for Raina - @rainaleon (IG, Twitter, Facebook) and rainaleon.com (website); @storyjoyinc on IG and Twitter and storyjoyinc.com and check out acentosreview.com and @acentosreview on IG and Twitter and Facebook

Books and other work: Canticle of Idols ( CW Books, 2008); profeta without refuge (Nomadic Press, 2016); Areyto to Atabey: Essays on the Mother(ing) Self (Alley Cat Books, 2019); Boogeyman Dawn; sombra : (dis)locat

Social Media for Jasminne - IG/Twitter: @jasminnemendez

Website: www.jasminnemendez.com

Social Media for Cin- Cin Pim - cinpim.com

Additional list of Afro-Latinx authors to check out

★ Jasminne Mendez

★ Darrel Alejandro Holnes

★ Raina J. León

★ Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa

★ Grisel Y. Acosta

★ Willie Perdomo

★ Aracelis Girmay

★ Alan Pelaez Lopez

★ Ariana Brown

★ John Murillo

★ Elizabeth Acevedo

★ Thea Matthews

★ Kay Nilsson

★ Dizzy Jenkins

★ Avotcja

★ Yesenia Montilla

★ Roberto Carlos Garcia

★ Mathew Rodriguez

★ Azuah

★ Adriana Herrera

★ Aya de León

★ Sulma Arzu-Brown

Prompts for teachers considering teaching the podcast

★ When you consider the title of the podcast, What the water carries, what comes to mind?

★ Listen to the quotation from Toni Morrison. What does it mean to you?

○ Read the essay, The Site of Memory, after you have listened to the podcast. How are the ideas of the podcast and the essay in conversation with one another?

★ In this prompt, watch Aracelis Girmay read another section from The Black Maria. Have you ever been suspected of doing or being something or someone you are not? Write about that. In partners, tell this story to someone else. After you have shared this story, tell your partner who you are or how you want to be seen and in answer, your partner should say, “I see you you for who you are and who you want to be”. Write about what it is to hear that sentence from someone who is not your family or dearest friend.

★ Consider the term Latinx? What does it mean for you? One of the poets mentioned, Alan Pelaez Lopez, talks about how the “x” is a sign of a wound, not a trend. What do they mean? How does the essay complicate your understanding of what it means to be Latinx?

★ What are the songs that you keep on repeat, the songs that you need to hear over and over again, the songs that reveal an important part of who you are? Listen to “La Rebelión” by Joe Arroyo. Now read the poem from Elizabeth Acevedo mentioned in the podcast. Follow Acevedo’s form to write your own poem

○ First stanza: reveal a memory of a particular moment when you heard that song you love

○ Second stanza: incorporate a line or a word from the song you love and how it connects to your body or reveals who you are

○ Third stanza: tell us about the place around this memory. Where is the story you are telling taking place?

○ Fourth stanza: Show is you dancing or moving to this music that you treasure.

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