Community Calendar

El Museo del Barrio Presents

VOCES DE LA CULTURA
Conversations on the History and Culture of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean

Wednesday, April 26, 6:30 - 8:00 pm

FREE ADMISSION

El Museo del Barrio is pleased to host a presentation of the new book Voces de la Cultura by Ángel Collado Schwarz. Produced as an extension of the radio program of the same name broadcast in Puerto Rico and in New York City through the Fundación La Voz del Centro, Voces de la Cultura brings permanence to the show by transcribing 25 of the weekly interviews between Collado Schwarz and prominent Caribbean intellectuals. The book enlivens some of Puerto Rico’s great figures with oral histories of national heroes such as the painter Francisco Oller, the doctor, poet and diplomat Ramón Emeterio Betances, political leaders Pedro Albizu Campos and Luis Muñoz Marín, educator Eugenio María de Hostos, and, of course, los Tres Reyes Magos who arrive each January for the Latin American celebration of the Epiphany. Voces de la Cultura also gives a voice to historical events and institutions such as El Grito de Lares, the 1868 revolution, El Ateneo Puertorriqueño, founded in 1867 for the advancement of arts and sciences specifically within Puerto Rico, and the issue of emigration from the island to the United States.

While the book is a 331-page volume in Spanish with an extraordinary selection of photographs and documents, many of them published here for the first time, the event will be conducted in English. Presenting this historical and cultural dialogue will be two of the book’s contributors, Dr. Efrén Rivera Ramos, Dean of the School of the Law, and Professor Amílcar Tirado, both of the University of Puerto Rico. Author Ángel Collado Schwarz will also provide insight into the development of the radio program and of this corresponding text. A reception provided courtesy of Rums of Puerto Rico will follow.

Presented with the collaboration of the 1199 SEIU Health & Human Service Union, the Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños at Hunter College, and the Institute for Puerto Rican Policy, this program is made possible, in part, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. Special thanks to Univision 41 Nueva York and to Radio WADO 1280AM.

El Museo is located at 1230 Fifth Avenue between 104th and 105th Streets and may be reached by subway: #6 to 103rd Street station; #2, #3 to Central Park North/110th Street station or by bus: M1, M3, M4 on Madison and Fifth Avenues to 104th Street; local crosstown service between Yorkville or East Harlem and the Upper West Side M96 and M106 or M2. Museum hours: Wednesday - Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed on Monday and Tuesday. Suggested museum admission: $6 adults; $4 students and seniors; members and children under 12 accompanied by an adult enter free. For more information, contact www.elmuseo.org or 212-831-7272.