Our Founders
Miriam Esther Jiménez Román
(1951 - 2020)
Miriam E. Jiménez Román, the Puerto Rican archivist, social theorist, scholar, lecturer, writer, editor, and invaluable mentor to generations of young academics, activists, and artists exploring the African diaspora in the Caribbean, Latin America, and the United States, passed away in her home in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico on August 6th, 2020. She was 69.
Obituary
Jiménez Román was known widely for her volume The Afro-Latin@ Reader: History and Culture in the United States (Duke University Press, 2010), which she co-edited with her long-time collaborator, interlocutor, and partner, the late Dr. Juan Flores, a faculty member at New York University at the time of his passing. Jiménez Román’s contributions to the documentation and the public’s education of Latin@s in the United States, Latin@s of African descent transnationally, and the politics of race in empire began in El Barrio....
Juan Flores
(1951 - 2020)
Juan Flores (born John Martin Flores; September 29, 1943 – December 2, 2014) was a Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis and director of Latino Studies at New York University. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Queens College in New York, and both his Masters and Ph.D from Yale University in German Literature. Flores' major areas of interest include social and cultural theory, Latino and Puerto Rican studies, popular music, theory of diaspora and transnational communities and AfroLatin@ culture.
Obituary
We are indebted to Juan Flores’s teaching and mentoring, to his widely quoted books Divided Borders: Essays on Puerto Rican Identity (1992) or From Bomba to Hip-Hop: Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity (2000). We owe much to his untiring efforts, delving into archives, libraries and sound recordings, and into the vast storehouse of the memory of friends and collaborators. We admire the ways he delineated and at times defiantly transformed the contours of what we know today as diasporic and Latino cultural studies...
Carta a Miriam Jiménez Román
From un jabao como tú
It’s June 11th, your birthday, and I can imagine myself ending a long subway ride at the Atlantic Station, still wrestling with which ofrenda to bring you, or better said: which would least frustrate you. El biscochito you love pero hecho por “el presentao,” whose bakery you vowed to never patron again, or pick up another pinot? I know this to be your favorite wine though you never drink a drop of my selections. Grateful for my mediocre contribution to your movable feast you politely allow others to imbibe.
Nearly two years ago, my colleagues and I set a virtual table -un convite, a vente tú, a junte- set to memorialize a giant on whose shoulders we stand. Pusimos una mesa que simboliza la familia que elegimos. In the final days of our time with you, Miriam, it was Zaire, Josue, Larry, Ryan, Kwami, Melissa, Yamila, Pablo and the family you chose at your side. Common ethics, curiosity, a commitment to learning and justice made one a friend, even Family to Miri.
I think you saw your legacy in pursuit of justice and in those open to, and imbued with the knowledge that could lead to a more just world....
