Catatonia

In 1899 ambassadors from protestant churches knelt over the map of Puerto Rico, divided the territory among them and prayed that locals met their influence without hostility. This vignette from Donald T Moore’s book Puerto Rico for Christ and pulled apart by Puerto Rican sociologist Emilio Pantojas García sets the wheels in motion that allowed religion to steer the future of our political and cultural system. In this episode, journalist and producer Alejandra Rosa and author and photographer Huáscar Robles review how this religious influence fuels today’s anti-LGBTQ agenda. This is part 2 of 3.

In her description of a hate crime, a transgender woman recalls how her audition sharpened while she fended off what seemed like certain death. She could hear the nightscape, the coquies and radio sounds of the nearby homes. Puerto Rican journalist dubbed this “The Puerto Rican Silence,” the floating sounds of the island’s landscape. The description spans many metaphors on a country plagued by censorship, vigilance and persecution. Rosa, on powerful and emotionally charged interview, discusses with Catatonia Podcast the upcoming narrative piece she penned for Scallywag Magazine “From the Church to the Capitol: “Religious Freedom” vs. LGBT rights in Puerto Rico. This is part 1 of 3 episodes dedicated to The Future of the LGBTQ+ Community as the Religious Right influences government and attempts to roll back protections.

The funeral of a military man. A young man escapes homophobia. We all recall memories associated with our contentious relationship with our political identity. What is your anecdote of the concept of Puerto Rico Statehood?

4,645 people died after Hurricane María ---- 4 6 4 5 ----- The number? A report by The New England Journal o Medicine. The conclusion? Lack of transparency. This episode explores the poetry behind the discourse given to a nation in a state of shock.  

I went to Puerto Rico to bury my grandmother. There I found the national strike. This episode is about pausing, thinking and the silences we face during trauma. It also about images and surveillance, and how social and traditional media might evolve to become Puerto Rico's next "carpeteo" or surveillance program.

Bubu Negrón y Luis Agosto Leduc visited NY's NADA Art fair to raise funds for the Puerta de Tierra Brigade, an arts initiative to lift San Juan's Puerta de Tierra neighborhood into visibility. This is a bilingual episode.

Puerto Rico goes into overdrive. Privatized PREPA. Ed system is overhauled. And bitcoin zillionaires move to PR. But where are culture and arts mentioned in our recovery? Also, the second half of photog Joseph Rodríguez's interview.

Legedary photographer Joseph Rodríguez (Nat Geo, NY Times) talks life and death in Puerto Rico. Women take the streets of NY and my mom leaves for Puerto Rico.

My mom adopts a pigeon. Puerto Rico dances in the dark and the First Lady thinks parks are pretty.

My mom relocated to New York after Hurricane María, a category 4 storm, eroded Puerto Rico's electric grid and killed close to one thousand U.S. citizens. In this podcast, I talk about moving her to New York, a metropolis unlike here small town in Caguas and the anxieties of living with an elderly adult in a hostile city. But what I really focus on is putting together the puzzle of what happened in Puerto Rico through her own anecdotes.