Institute for Community Research

Two Hartford Sqaure West,

Suite 100

I am a writer and an applied cultural, visual and media anthropologist.

Writer: I am at work on a novel titled "Flora's Grave" about the life of Amapola and her mother Flora. The novel which takes place in  Arroyo, Puerto Rico beginning in the 1950s, tells the tale of a Caribbean town where sugar is king, and everyone's life is significantly marked by poverty, migration, superstition and nostalgia. Ama, the story's main character is a motherless child, who desperately wants to find her mother Flora. Flora died from tuberculosis... more

Anthropological Interests: My academic research focuses on youth and popular culture; representations of race and blackness in Puerto Rico; popular and public art in the Caribbean and urban U.S.; and body modification practices (elective aesthetic surgery) among Latinas. more 

Applied Work: I am the project director of Puerto Rican Girls Speak!, in collaboration the Institute for Community Research, we are documenting culturally situated narratives about success from low-income, urban Puerto Rican girls between the ages of 14 to 18 years, their families, peers and community networks in Hartford, CT’s Frog Hollow neighborhood. more