5 Latinx Creatives Share How They’re Staying at Home #QuédateEnCasa
As the arts and culture go online, we asked some of our friends what they are watching, reading, and/or clicking while staying at home in order to compile a list of inspiring sources for our readers. From live video jams to books on tape, ideas poured in. On social media, our followers raved about the much anticipated book The Undocumented Americans, as well as titles like Sabrina and Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine and Isabel Allende’s A Long Petal of the Sea. Cinephiles have been devouring Cinema Tropical’s curated list of films available free online while others danced to DJ D-Nice, Sunny Cheeba, and DJ Bembona‘s live jam parties and Debbie Allen‘s salsa class on instagram.
In the spirit of discovering more ways to stay home, we reached out to some favorite creative minds. Here’s what they said:
Ariana A. Curtis, PhD, curator for Latinx Studies at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
With my travel and public talks postponed, I have more time and head space for my own research, phone calls, emailing and strategizing for collections and ongoing work. I have a porous work/life balance anyway, so I am embracing all creative blends of personal reflection, academic rigor, cultural connection, joy, and calmness during this quarantine life.
Watching: Currently alternating Self Made, Gentefied, and Schitt$ Creek on Netflix. As more artists are going online to perform, chat, or just connect with people, it is a refreshing use of social media to drop into a poetry reading or artist talk.
Reading: Revisiting Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider, Words of Fire edited by Beverly Guy-Sheftall, and diving into some new-to-me exhibition catalogs and artist books, including Scherezade Garcia, Teresita Fernandez, and Iliana Emilia Garcia.
Listening: The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates, IG live DJing, including 9th Wonder and D-Nice, and Ozuna radio on Pandora as my daily background music.
Quiara Alegría Hudes, playwright and author.
I’ve been wanting a Tony Peralta piece for a minute now. His first print during the COVID mess was a colador de cafe. E-sold! My 13yo daughter and I have been co-reading Jose Antonio Vargas’s excellent memoir Dear America—undocumented life from a Filipino-American point of view.
And with more time, I’ve been making dried beans only. No cans! While listening to TLC throwbacks. They’re still live, after all these years. Lisa Left Eye Lopes, rest in poetry. But Tío Felix of the excellent Alt.Latino podcast keeps me posted with the new jawns, too.
(Photo: Larry Dixon)
Patrick Martinez, visual artist.
When I’m focused and creating in the studio it is very similar to what all of us are going through right now in regards to being in containment with our thoughts in our homes. I feel a great sense of freedom and solitude during a solid studio session, so my weekly routine hasn’t really changed. Although I’m practicing social distancing, I’m already kind of set up for it. I’m either at home or my studio everyday. I continue to create and read on the daily. I’m mindful of staying present for family, friends and people that might need my assistance somehow during these hectic times. I try and go for runs in places that aren’t densely populated. It’s important for me to get sun, air and exercise. For me I need that physical release to keep a balance in my life. I’m also currently finishing
The Autobiography of Malcolm X and I’ve been watching some good television and also some trashy TV. A great, well done documentary I highly recommend is The Kingmaker on Showtime. It explains and documents the rise, fall and rise again of the Marcos empire in the Philippines. Here’s a bunch of other artists’ instagram I find interesting: @kingtexas @_revok_ @felipebaeza @erinmriley @ramirogomezjr @rdeborah191 @gajinfujita.la
Lilliam Rivera, author of the young adult novels Dealing In Dreams, The Education of Margot Sanchez, and Goldie Vance: The Hotel Whodunit. (Photo credit: Lilith Ferreira / Las Fotos Project).
The only thing moving me right now is the pictures books I’m reading with my 8-year-old daughter. We’ve read Love by Matt de la Peña, Yo Soy Muslim: A Father’s Letter to His Daughter by Mark Gonzales, and last night she read to me My Heart by Corinna Lukyen. Matt read Love on a Instagram Live via @mattdelapena and it’s available now.
(Photo credit: Kielinski Photography)
Raquel Salas Rivera, award-winning poet, translator, and literary critic.
My jeva says my taste is eclectic and she’s totally right. I consume things that entertain, inform, make me feel intensely, and numb my feelings, depending on what the moment requires. 2020 has been a year of grief and rapid change. Puerto Rico saw the earthquakes, the murder of Alexa, and now the COVD-19 curfew. Poetry, film, and art in general have provided emotional support in unexpected ways.
My favorite Cine Boricua para tiempos de Coronavirus include: La Operación de Ana María García, Extraterrestres de Carla Cavina y La gran fiesta de Marcos Zurinaga y Roberto Gándara (¡con Raúl Juliá de poeta!). The Institute of Puerto Rican Culture DIVEDCO archive. Poco a poco voy
explorando esta lista de Cinema Tropical. (I’ve also rewatched Return to OZ, Waterworld, and Outbreak and am none-the-wiser.)
Poetry books to read during quarantine: La expansión de los cuerpos de Rubén Ramos Colón, son cimarrón por Aldolfina villanueva de edwin torres, The Tradition by Jericho Brown, Una ballena es un país de Isabel Zapata, Condom Poems 4 Sale by Pedro Pietri.
Stay tuned for even more ideas in our upcoming April newsletter.
For now, ¡quédate en casa!