Art

What do Sonia Sotomayor, Jennifer López, Anthony Romero, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Mario Vázquez and Jon Oliva have in common? These Latinos called Bronx their home. So did Tito Puente, Prince Royce, Willie Colón and many others. I’ll throw in a couple of honorary Latinos such as Edgar Allan Poe, Marian Zazeela, Woody Allen, Neil Simon […]

This week, our friends at Latino USA produced an entire podcast about the outdoors, but it is this one segment from the show that is making us smile. It is called “Frida’s Garden.” You had us at Frida, Maria Hinojosa. Here is the piece: Photo by Gabriela Sierra Alonso

EDITOR’S NOTE: An earlier version of this piece was published on the author’s blog. Maira has given us permission to republish her essay on our site. Time is money and money is time. I know, I’m a first generation art student who has to constantly shoot down any sporadic spurts of adventure to get to […]

I spent a couple of days with TATS Cru —”The Mural Kings” who began writing (what media would later call “graffiti”) in the South Bronx during the1980s— talking about their origins, gifts and blessings, as well as the act of creation. Entering The Point felt like walking through a temple. There is something sacred not […]

Big props to Loisaida Inc. and its steering of the legendary Loisaida Festival, which kicks off this Sunday on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Continuing its commitment to showcase the Lower East Side’s independent and diverse spirit, Loisaida Inc. announced its lineup for the 2015 Loisaida Festival, which will include Chicano Batman, Calma Carmona,Herencia de Plena, and Papote Jimenez y […]

I am one of hundreds of East Harlem artists denied housing at Artspace PS109. The Promise In the summer of 2014, 53,000+ people applied to live in 89 affordable apartments at Artspace PS109. This has become an all too common scene in New York City’s housing market. Decades of public subsidies and assistance for luxury development in NYC […]

Meet D, Texas and Tay, three breakdancing B-Boys from New York City’s underground. A few weeks ago, D and Texas arrested for dancing (not for the first time). Tay has also been arrested for dancing as well. This video, however, shows that plainclothes police (Gestapo) were used in their arrest. The criminalization of artists —particularly […]

I’d just returned to New York from a trip to Puerto Rico in 2011, when my mother recounted a family tale to me that her paternal grandfather had told her many times when she was little, one that even I had heard throughout the years. (Photo by Bella Vida Letty.) I’d invented characters and worlds […]

Gentrification —the influx of residents, usually middle to upper class, into an urban area who in turn cause an uptick in property values and rent— is nearly as old as human history: historians note incidences of gentrification in Ancient Rome, when wealthy residents and commercial property owners bought out poorer areas to build large markets and […]

What does “MultiViral” mean to 15 artists from around the world? This video from Calle 13’s official channel explains.

You came to my land To look for oil, Took most Of the profit To New York, Houston, Detroit, You exploited The weak all along, Knowing, You were wrong. Guess what? It made us Stronger. No longer will we Sit back While you stick Your instruments In our earth. Slick and slick, Stone and stone, […]

Being a single mother is a challenge. Immigrant mothers face those challenges every day, and they also have extra hurdles to jump. To document these aspects of their lives, an inter-generational photography workshop organized by Mano a Mano, NYC (Mexican Culture without Borders) gave cameras to immigrant parents and their children born in the United […]

March 7 – July 18, 2014 The 8th Floor 17 W 17th St NYC, NY 10011 Info: 646-839-5908 Open Hours: Tuesday – Thursday 11-6 and Friday 10-5 Curated by Alejandro de la Fuente, Robert Woods Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics and Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University, and originally presented at the Centro […]

Los Muros Hablan August 19, 2013 – August 25, 2013 Los Muros Hablan, a street-art traveling initiative arrives at NYC’s own El Barrio and the South Bronx. Beginning on August 19, artists from Latin America and the Caribbean arrive to the island of Manhattan to rescue and transform abandoned spaces in and around el Barrio, New York’s iconic […]

In an effort to support new and emerging artists, the streets around the popular Williamsburg, Brooklyn eatery Cubana Social were transformed this past Saturday into a landscape of flickering images and experimental, multimedia movie reels projected onto buildings, into abandoned alleyways and onto construction sites by Absolut vodka’s Open Canvas project. Open Canvas will move […]

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article was co-written by Ivan Sanchez and Jane Gabriels, Director of Pepatián. For further information please feel free to contact any of the organizations linked in this article.  By now it is of no great surprise to know that when our country enters into an economic recession, the first programs to lose funding are […]

Spending a day with Latino visionary James “Koe” Rodriguez is like hanging out with your older primo. He’s always dressed fresh-to-death and you’re immediately submerged into the feeling that even though he’s only a few years older, he’s already lived two lifetimes ahead and is in the midst of conquering yet a third. Koe has […]