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@ the NY International Latino Film Fest 'America' red carpet

Scenes from the "America" red carpet event at the NY International Latino Film Festival. Related photos are part of my NYC '11 photo set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/clarisel/sets/72157625965022628/

Julia de Burgos stamp dismissed?

Commentary


By Steven Maginnis

There are few people more deserving of commemoration on a United States postage stamp than Puerto Rican poet Julia de Burgos.  De Burgos, who lived from 1914 to 1953, grew up in poverty in Puerto Rico but managed to go to college through a scholarship and become a teacher - effectively pulling herself up by her own bootstraps.  Later, through involvement with the Puerto Rican Nationalist party, she became a full-time writer and wrote about her love of Puerto Rico, the social struggles of the poor and oppressed, and her own feelings of entrapment and confinement. "Writing in the 1930s through the 1950s," one reviewer for Publishers Weekly, commented, "de Burgos was ahead of her time in grasping connections between history, the body, politics, love, self-negation and feminism that would later prove to be the foundations for writers like [Adrienne] Rich and [Sylvia] Plath."    

In September 2010, Julia de Burgos - who died of pneumonia in New York City in 1953 and was initially buried anonymously because her body could not be identified - was honored with a postage stamp in the U.S. Postal Service's Literary Arts Series, a series of commemorative stamps dating back to 1979 that has honored John Steinbeck, Edith Wharton, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, among others.  She was thus honored as an American, not an Hispanic American, writer; the de Burgos stamp is part of a mainstream series that's as diverse as America itself (James Baldwin and Richard Wright are among the black authors honored in the series).  In fact, she's the first Hispanic author commemorated in the series.       

But some readers of Linn's Stamp News seem to disagree with the Postal Service's actions. Linn's Stamp News, the nation's premier philatelic (stamp collecting) magazine, holds an annual poll of the most and least popular stamps and postal stationery. When the results came in for the 2010 stamp program poll, the Julia de Burgos commemorative stamp was voted the second worst commemorative design - behind stamps honoring abstract expressionist painters, 548 to 377. It was understandable, as the de Burgos stamp design seemingly reduced the woman to a caricature and featured a background that depicted Puerto Rico's landscape somewhat cartoonish.  

But get this. It was also voted second least necessary commemorative - behind stamps for Sunday comic strips, 563 to 264. 

What are we to make of this? Stamp collectors have always been stereotyped as one thing or another, from overeducated geeks who bore people by showing their collections like they were vacation slides (as Woody Allen depicts them) or, worse, stodgy old white men who don't interact with anyone and prefer to stay home, mounting their precious pieces of postal currency depicting dead presidents.  It's the latter stereotype that this dissing the de Burgos stamp in the 2010 Linn's poll suggests, with an element of racism, misogyny, and sociopolitical arch-conservatism. 

The philatelic community has been fighting this stereotype for a long time.  Black stamp collectors have promoted the hobby to get more black people involved, and the Postal Service itself has issued numerous stamps for blacks and Hispanics.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt, an ardent stamp collector himself, personally saw it to that Booker T. Washington appear on a postage stamp after many black Americans petitioned him to have such a stamp issued.  The ten-cent Booker T. Washington Famous Americans stamp of 1940 marked the first time a black man appeared on a U.S. postage stamp, but its denomination limited its use at a time when first-class postage was only three cents.   As for a black woman on a U.S. postage stamp, that didn't happen until Harriet Tubman was honored in 1978.

So when stamp collectors, who are supposed to know more about history and geography through their experience with stamps, find a commemorative for Julia de Burgos unnecessary, it makes me wonder how many of them open their minds to other cultures and perspectives.  What is it these 264 Linn's readers objected to?  Was it de Burgos's feminist attitudes? Her Puerto Rican nationalism?  Or had they simply never heard of her before?  Were they too disinterested in Puerto Rican culture to at least learn more about Julia de Burgos?

I owe a lot of my own knowledge to stamp collecting.  When I first began the hobby at the age of ten, the U.S. Postal Service was issuing commemoratives honoring the American Revolution Bicentennial, and I learned a lot about how America went from thirteen colonies to becoming one nation through those stamps.  My early collection included foreign stamps, which taught me about countries that had been wiped off the map, like the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which from 1940 to 1991 were forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union.  And yes, I even discovered American poets like Edgar Lee Masters, Emily Dickinson, and Robert Frost, all of whom I read in school.

Maybe these 264 Linn's readers who thought that a Julia de Burgos stamp was unnecessary should bear in mind that, while Americans working in the English language wrote a lot of our great poetry, they didn't write all of it.  Maybe if they give themselves a chance to learn about Julia de Burgos, they'll find her odes to Puerto Rico as culturally significant as Carl Sandburg's exaltations of Chicago or Robinson Jeffers's musings on California.           

By the way, the kind of stodgy white men most people imagine as stamp collectors are called "Mr. Wilsons," after the grouchy neighbor in "Dennis the Menace," one of the comic strips commemorated in the Postal Service's Sunday comic strips stamps.

Steven Maginnis is a New Jersey-based freelance writer and member in the PRSUN network. To view more of his writings, visit his blog at http://stevenmaginnis.blogspot.com.

Image by clarisel via Flickr

         

Happy blogosversary PRSUN

PRSUN today celebrates its blogosversary. While PRSUN was born in the summer of 2002 as an e-magazine, I started blogging right here at www.prsun.blogspot.com in the summer of 2004.

Here I am at the 116th street festival in East Harlem last month with two interesting characters I met. It has been a pleasure documenting stories and events related to the Puerto Rican community. Thank you for your ongoing support of this multimedia project.

PRSUN is currently in transition, but I wanted to take a moment to celebrate this PRSUN blogosversary with my readers, visitors, advertisers and sponsors.

Informing, empowering and building community continues to be PRSUN's business and social mission.

Happy blogosversary PRSUN. I do love this independent media and art business.

NEW: PRSUN Pic Badge

PRSUN always seeks ways to make our readers and visitors feel as though they are an important part of our business and social mission to inform, empower and build community.

This is our newest project: the PRSUN Pic Badge. Show your support of our mission.

PRSUN is a social entrepreneurship.

Puerto Rico Sun Communications - Home

Puerto Rico Sun Communications - Home

Visit PRSUN's official website. Find out about our services. Advertise in the PRSUN network. Become a sponsor.

PRSUN is on summer vacation

Until further notice

Salsa and bomba in the Bronx

Free music events in the Bronx to highlight salsa and bomba. Click on images for more information.

Visit www.ilovethebronx.com

Visit www.pregones.org

The National PR Day Parade in Photos

I attended the Puerto Rican Day Parade and tried to capture a good mix of the parade. My main focus was to document the culture and the people. Enjoy.

There are more than 600 photos in my photo set. Also make sure to visit a group photo exhibit on the parade that PRSUN is curating at http://flickr.com/groups/nyprparade. Support independent media and art.

Photos by Clarisel Gonzalez/PRSUN

One sato at a time...Un sato a la vez: Sterilizing your Dog = Saving a Sato?

One sato at a time...Un sato a la vez: Sterilizing your Dog = Saving a Sato?

Puerto Rico promotes itself as a top travel destination

With President Obama's historic and brief visit to Puerto Rico next week, the island is getting worldwide attention. Puerto Rico Tourism Company officials welcome the spotlight to show off the Caribbean island as a "tropical paradise" worth exploring for its rich history, culture, natural wonders, cuisine, sports and more.
Despite headlines of the high unemployment and high crime rate on the island, it is impressive that Puerto Rico has actually seen an increase in tourism this year.
Tourism reports that hotel occupancy rates this year increased four percent over the same period last year; the island saw a 34 percent increase in visitors from cruise ships last year an expect an increase this year; and the number of airlines flying to Puerto Rico is up, with nine U.S. airlines now servicing the island and another expected later this year.
PRSUN met earlier this week with Ciso Moreno of the Puerto Rico Tourism Company, which has been spent the last few days at the Caribbean Travel Organization's "Caribbean Week in New York" trade show. Puerto Rican tourism officials are at the trade show promoting the island as a top travel destination and to showcase the island's tourism development and investment plan to potential investors.
"Puerto Rico is the most diverse destination within the Caribbean made up a diverse cultures," he says. "It's a big blend."
He says the diversity the island has to offer is not only reflected in the people, but also in its cuisine and tourist attractions throughout the island.
"We want to offer you a destination experience," says Moreno. Puerto Rico Tourism encourages visitors to go beyond the hotel they are staying and to explore the island because "there's something for everyone" from the beautiful beaches to the natural wonders to scuba diving, whale watching, and golfing.
"We have the fun, the sun and the rum," he says, adding that tourists are welcomed to see what is "unique and different" about Puerto Rico.
He says many tourists leave the island and end up returning to explore more. Repeat clientele, he says, is 57% at hotels, which is a good sign.
New laws on the island are making it an attractive investment opportunity for resort and hotel developers.
The island's tax credits and exemptions for projects such as hotels, timeshares and vacation clubs are also helping. Tax incentives also exist to make Puerto Rico a highly desirable location for film productions, which helps to contribute to the island's economy as far as jobs and hotel rooms.
In addition, Puerto Rico's new marketing campaign "Just Think, Puerto Rico," which was launched in New York City last November, has definitely made its "Puerto Rico does it better" line more than just a catchy phrase.
The fact that no passport is required for U.S. citizens traveling to Puerto Rico is also especially attractive to tourists seeking a Caribbean getaway.
Puerto Rico has eased its laws, making it easier for U.S. citizens to get married in Puerto Rico. Because of that, Moreno says he expects to see an increase in the wedding/romance tourism sector, which he calls "Puerto Rico's best kept secret."
Another interesting market Puerto Rico Tourism is targeting is medical tourism to serve visitors with health problems such as those in need of dialysis.
While many say President Obama's visit to Puerto Rico is a public relations stunt to sway stateside Puerto Ricans on his reelection campaign, Moreno says Obama has an interest in Puerto Rico's vision for economic development including its reinvigorating tourism industry.
In this economy, Moreno says, many places are busy trying to fill the hotels rooms they have, but "we continue opening hotels." And, that means jobs on an island with high unemployment numbers. That is something that has grabbed Obama's attention, Moreno says.
The president's visit is expected to include talks about Puerto Rico's status as a U.S. commonwealth and government efforts to foster economic development.
To find out more about Puerto Rico Tourism, visit seepuertorico.com.

Boricua Pride Postage from Zazzle.com

Boricua Pride Postage from Zazzle.com

It's Puerto Rican Parade week in NYC. Stop by the PRSUN shop. Show your support for independent online media and art. Shop features a variety of merchandise featuring original photography by Clarisel Gonzalez.

Today's featured product is "Boricua Pride Postage."

Andres Jimenez in the Bronx

Andres Jimenez performs at Hostos in the Bronx Friday night. To view more photos, visit my South Bronx events '11 photo set.