Periodizing Latino/a Literature through Pedro Pietri’s Nuyorican Cityscapes

Abstract

We referred in our introduction to a chronological divide in contemporary Latino/a literature between a Civil Rights and a post-Sixties generation. Yet many of the writers closely associated with the Civil Rights movement have continued to write well into the post-Sixties era. To trace the contours of these two periods in Latino/a literary history, we will look at two texts by a seminal Nuyorican figure whose work straddles these generations. Through reading one of Pedro Pietri’s major works from each period, “Puerto Rican Obituary” (1973) and “El Spanglish National Anthem” (1993), we will argue for placing these poems within the context of broader historical movements in the poet’s work specifically and Latino/a literature more generally. This chapter thus serves as an overture, introducing the central themes that later chapters will develop.