“Hung Up Between Two Sticks”: The Black Aesthetic and Puerto Rican Identity Formation in ‘Down These Mean Streets’ On Nov. 19th
Dr. Trent Masiki, Postdoctoral Associate, Kilichand Honors College, Boston University
Tuesday, Nov. 19th | 5:00pm | African American Studies Program Building, 138 Mountfort St., Brookline
In this talk, Dr. Trent Masiki examines the relationship between afro-latinidad and the Black Aesthetic in Down These Mean Streets (1967). the groundbreaking memoir by Puerto Rican writer Piri Thomas. Masiki pays special attention to Thomas’s literary apprenticeship under John Oliver Killens, one of the founders of the Harlem Writers Guild (HWG). The HWG had aesthetic roots in the Popular Front of the 1930s and its members played decisive roles in the development of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. Masiki’s analysis of African American immersion narratives, signifying jokes, and cultural tropes reveals Down These Mean Streets to be as much a foundational text of the Black Arts Movement as it is of the Nuyorican Movement.