Luis Fernando Coss, Peri, is a writer, a journalist, a published author, a professor of journalism at the University of Puerto Rico, and has been editor and co-founder of countless journals, and newspapers throughout his 25+ year career, Peri, is co-founder of one of the most important independent news platforms in the recent history of the island, 80grados Prensa sin prisa (press in no haste). Also, a published and recognized author, his latest book De El Nuevo Día al periodismo digital: trayectorias y desafíos (Ediciones Callejón) is about reinvention.

Read Marcia Rivera’s presentation to Dr. Philip Alston U.N. Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights who visited Puerto Rico on Sunday 10 December.  

This is a Spanish talk.

Calmed and poised Peri talks. He caught on early that digital would change how the word would survive. With an initial investment of $79.00, he launched 80grados alongside a numerous collective of cultural and creative workers. To date, the news site has published over 500 writers and creative professionals. And, they have published every Friday since they went live in 2010, hurricane season included.

Aquí Peri habla un poquito de todo. En general sale la descripción de como el periodismo independiente en Puerto Rico cobra una nueva fuerza cuando nace la plataforma digital. Pese a las desafios de la incierta estructura financiera que se le presenta a todo el mercado por igual, las iniciativas independientes de colectivos en el campo del periodismo en Puerto Rico han sido claves en estos pasados tres meses. El trabajo continuo, sacrificado y digno de muchos brilla hoy por esa misma constancia profesional y moral. Gracias a todos ustedes.

Sol

Teófilo Torres performs in New York City | 28 December 2017 | Loisaida Center

IN SPANISH Episode 80 - After the storm no Puerto Rican is the same, at least I’m not. I am me, always deep, intense, reflecting, but something is different. A puzzle gets assembled piece by piece. Big stories are made up of pieces of lore. I realized that with Frank, I’m looking to put together something I’m not sure what it is. I think maybe after memories of what Puerto Rico once was or had. Somewhere in there is my movement at the moment.

Frank is an old-timer of film and television. He was around and working before Univision was Univision, which he was a part of before it all got built up into the empire it is today. Frank worked with Dad in seven television specials. I remember being a kid in his sets and even having a little part in the children’s television special they made. Maybe this year Dad and Frank can have a conversation about it and we can let the thing play in streaming. Just ideas. Like I said, I’m trying to put something together I’m not sure what it is yet. Frank is a part of the aspect of Puerto Rican history I know best, its arts and culture. It is in Spanish. We couldn’t have done it in English but we didn’t. Asi que disfruten de Frank lo que puedan entender.

Luego de María no soy la misma. Creo que ningún puertorriqueño lo es. Algo busco que aún no se que es o algo busco armar que aún no se lo que es pero algo me dice que con Frank comencé a buscar algo nuevo. Veremos. De seguro busco historias. De seguro busco fundamentos para emular el profesionalismo, aprender de los que corren las largas distancias, y razones para ayudar a otros a conocer quienes somos en especial en el campo de arte y cultura que es de lo más que conozco de mi isla. Frank es un ‘viejo lobo de mar’ como escribió Sylvia Rexach. Recuerdo estar en los sets de Frank para las grabaciones de especiales de televisión que hizo con Padre. Siete en total. En fin. Muchos recuerdos de mi país. Mucha música, mucha gente linda.

Y eso. Stay the course.

Resist neo-fascism, white supremacy, stand for DACA, Native Nations, Puerto Rico, call your senators to defend Net Neutrality. That is the last bit of democracy we have left. Black Lives Matter be better today than yesterday.

Sol

I struggled to watch Angel Manuel Soto film La Granja (The Farm, Happiness is Hard) not because it was bad, but because it was so good. He had me at minute three. Bravo to him. The film is a scathing socio-political commentary. To me, the consequence of depraved corruption. In this make believe dystopian realm, La Granja’s brazen punch, if you have any humanity in you, is that it’s true. This story takes place in Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rico few want to look at, like Angel says, “It’s not the Puerto Rico you see on postcards.” But it must be looked at. We learn by contrasting the good and the bad, the dark and the light and so on...

Why do we compare the most decadent and repulsive behavior of people to animals? I mean, most animals kill in self-defense or when they’re hungry, not for show. We, the people, also kill in self-defense or if we're hungry, but we also kill for show. Right? And so we’re in a category all of our own as I see it. What is animalistic about us? I’m imagining the side of human behavior that dismembers people without remorse or dismembers people with gusto as if the kill would save their lives. Another way to kill for show is to asphyxiate slowly with passive despotism, torture, oppression, enslavement, austerity, rape, robbery, pillage. These things set the landscape for either ignorance or violence, which turns the knob a little higher each time until it gets to such a point that it turns human reality into a menace. Somehow Angel gets at all this in La Granja without apology.

Angel is warning us but also urging us to take a step back to reconsider all our options, to dialogue with one another because we might just end up there. It looks like we're almost there by the look of things on a global scale. Corrupt and base souls strangling the people left and right, north and south, and east and west. They themselves seemed captured in a twisted sinister mindset that aims to make ignorance and vitriol the only way out, towards their way. The question is, which way is that?

That is what La Granja captures and presents - desperation, decay, oppression, indifference, and death. His poetry of understanding how colonialism plus massive white collar corruption entangled with the American Dream has dismembered a nation that is still alive both on the island and in the diaspora, ese pueblo grande Puertorriquño fuera de la isla.

La Granja doesn't make it easy or pretty on you. It's brave I'd say. But if there’s life, shouldn’t there also be hope? Go for compassion. Free Puerto Rico.

If the legendary Puerto Rican educator, writer, and patriot Don Eugenio María de Hostos were alive today, I wonder what he’d think of the community college in the South Bronx named after him, that no one thought would make it. Alas.

Just this past Thursday, Eugenio María de Hostos Community College launched its 50th Anniversary Season.

I can't help but believe that Don Eugenio would be proud of what one of the most marginalized and disenfranchised communities to have ever been in United States history did for themselves.

The story of Hostos is deserving of a lot more attention than it has ever received. It truly is an amazing story. A story about the Bronx, New York City and a reveal of margnalized communities. My relationship with the College is long and now very profound. Life changing really. And I’ll share that story as the year unfolds.

But for part one, for the past 8 months, I’ve been coordinating, conducting, and editing an oral history project for and about Hostos Community College - Hostos50. To date, I have interviewed well over 100 people and counting for a grand goal of 200. From former College Presidents Cándido de León and Flora Mancuso Edwards, to Congressman José E. Serrano, and former Bronx Borough Presidents Fernando Ferrer and Adolfo Carrión, to young students with a promising future like Rokia Diabi.

Once a month, for the next year, I’ll share some of these testimonies if you will. The testimonies are moving, sincere, revealing, courageous, some devastating, others empowering, and the story of triumph over adversity. And more relevant than ever.

Which brings me to Tere Martínez. I wanted to start with her because I love her because she has been nothing but noble to me and because her purpose is beautiful and her testimony open and to the point.

Like the song says, I must have done something good, for the grace of God gave me the opportunity to work on this project when we have, arguably, the most despicable crew of racists, sexists, homophobic, fear mongering, science deniers, xenophobes and troglodytes leading the world order.

The point indeed is that the voices emerging from this Hostos Community College oral collective as I’ve heard it first hand, confirm to me yet again that the leaders have it all wrong.

Ignorance judges the so-called “moochers” for being good for nothings. The truth is you find moochers and good for nothings at every level and anywhere you go, is not an exclusive club of poor people of communities of color.

The bottom line is that the power of education is real and access is imperative.