In Conversation: On Home in Florida: LatinX Writers and the Literature of Uprootedness

Cuban American journalist and poet Achy Obejas, author of the novels Ruins, Days of Awe, and three other books of fiction, is a contributor to Home in Florida: Latinx Writers and the Literature of Uprootedness (University of Florida Press). The collection showcases what editor Anjanette Delgado calls “literatura del desarraigo,” a Spanish literary tradition. Home in Florida features fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by Obejas, Richard Blanco, Jennine Capó Crucet, Caridad Moro-Gronlier, Frances Negrón-Muntaner, and many others. These writers – first-, second-, and third-generation immigrants to Florida from places such as Cuba, Mexico, Honduras, Perú, Argentina, and Chile – reflect the diversity of Latinx experiences across the state. Together, they explore what exactly makes Florida home for those struggling between memory and presence.

Born in Los Angeles to exiled Cuban parents, journalist and writer Ana Menéndez – whose work has appeared the Miami Herald, Vogue, Bomb Magazine, The New York Times, Tin House, and in several notable anthologies – is the author of Adios, Happy Homeland!; The Last War: A Novel, Loving Che, and In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd. She is also a contributor to Home in Florida: Latinx Writers and the Literature of Uprootedness (University of Florida Press). The collection showcases what editor Anjanette Delgado calls “literatura del desarraigo,” a Spanish literary tradition. Home in Florida features fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by Menéndez, Richard Blanco, Ariel Francisco, Frances Negrón-Muntaner, Isvett Verde, and many others. These writers – first-, second-, and third-generation immigrants to Florida from places such as Cuba, Mexico, Honduras, Perú, Argentina, and Chile – reflect the diversity of Latinx experiences across the state. Together, they explore what exactly makes Florida home for those struggling between memory and presence.

Anjanette Delgado, a Puerto Rican writer and journalist, is the author of The Heartbreak Pill, winner of the Latino International Book Award, and The Clairvoyant of Calle Ocho. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies and publications such as the Kenyon Review, Pleiades, Vogue, and The New York Times. She characterizes the work in Home in Florida: Latinx Writers and the Literature of Uprootedness (University of Florida Press), as “literatura del desarraigo,” a Spanish literary tradition. Home in Florida features fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by Reinaldo Arenas, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Jaquira Díaz, Patricia Engel, Carlos Harrison, and many others. These writers – first-, second-, and third-generation immigrants to Florida from places such as Cuba, Mexico, Honduras, Perú, Argentina, and Chile – reflect the diversity of Latinx experiences across the state. Together, they explore what exactly makes Florida home for those struggling between memory and presence.

Born in the Bronx to Dominican and Guatemalan parents and raised in Miami, Ariel Francisco is the author of Under Capitalism If Your Head Aches They Just Yank Off Your Head, A Sinking Ship is Still a Ship and All My Heroes Are Broke. He is also a contributor to Home in Florida: Latinx Writers and the Literature of Uprootedness (University of Florida Press). The collection showcases what editor Anjanette Delgado calls “literatura del desarraigo,” a Spanish literary tradition. Home in Florida features fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by Francisco, Richard Blanco, Frances Negrón-Muntaner, Achy Obejas, Isvett Verde, and many others. These writers – first-, second-, and third-generation immigrants to Florida from places such as Cuba, Mexico, Honduras, Perú, Argentina, and Chile – reflect the diversity of Latinx experiences across the state. Together, they explore what exactly makes Florida home for those struggling between memory and presence.

Caridad Moro-Gronlier is a Cuban American lesbian poet born in Los Angeles to Cuban immigrant parents. She is the author of the chapbook Visionware, a contributing editor of Grabbed: Poets & Writers on Sexual Assault, Empowerment & Healing, and associate editor for SWWIM Every Day, an online daily poetry journal. Tortillera: Poems (Texas Review Press) is her debut collection. The word “tortillera” means lesbian in Español. The moniker is familiar to most Spanish-speaking cultures, but is especially particular to the Cuban experience. In most Cuban American households, to be called a tortillera is a catcall that whips through the air like a lash whose only intention is to wound, to scar. Here, Moro-Gronlier not only applies the term to herself, she owns it, drapes it over her shoulders and heralds her truth through candid, unflinching poems that address the queer experience of coming out while Cuban. The first half of the book immediately plunges the reader into the speaker’s Cuban American life on-the-hyphen through vivid, first-person narratives. The work contained within the collection befits its audacious title – bold, original and utterly without shame. Jenny Molberg, author of Refusal: Poems, celebrated it. “An unflinching, delicious, and fierce anthem to Cuban American and queer identities, Tortillera reclaims the homophobic slur of its title, engaging and subverting the canonical tradition of the love poem.”

Puerto Rican-born Frances Negrón-Muntaner is a filmmaker, writer, curator, scholar and professor at Columbia University, where she is the founding director of the Media and Idea Lab and founding curator of the Latino Arts and Activism Archive at Columbia’s Rare Books and Manuscripts Library. Among her books and publications are: Boricua Pop: Puerto Ricans and the Latinization of American Culture, The Latino Media Gap, and Sovereign Acts: Contesting Colonialism in Native Nations and Latinx America. Her most recent films include Small City, Big Change; War for Guam; and Life Outside. She is also a contributor to Home in Florida: Latinx Writers and the Literature of Uprootedness (University of Florida Press). The collection showcases what editor Anjanette Delgado calls “literatura del desarraigo,” a Spanish literary tradition. Home in Florida features fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by Negrón-Muntaner, Richard Blanco, Jennine Capó Crucet, Ana Menéndez, Achy Obejas, and many others. These writers – first-, second-, and third-generation immigrants to Florida from places such as Cuba, Mexico, Honduras, Perú, Argentina, and Chile – reflect the diversity of Latinx experiences across the state. Together, they explore what exactly makes Florida home for those struggling between memory and presence.

Isvett Verde is a staff editor of The New York Times opinion section. She is also a contributor to Home in Florida: Latinx Writers and the Literature of Uprootedness (University of Florida Press). The collection showcases what editor Anjanette Delgado calls “literatura del desarraigo,” a Spanish literary tradition. Home in Florida features fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by Verde, Richard Blanco, Jennine Capó Crucet, Ana Menéndez, Achy Obejas, and many others. These writers – first-, second-, and third-generation immigrants to Florida from places such as Cuba, Mexico, Honduras, Perú, Argentina, and Chile – reflect the diversity of Latinx experiences across the state. Together, they explore what exactly makes Florida home for those struggling between memory and presence.

Born in Madrid to Cuban exile parents and raised in the United States, Richard Blanco is the author of the poetry collections City of a Hundred Fires, Directions to the Beach of the Dead, and Looking for The Gulf Motel, and the memoir For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey, recounting his experience in being selected by President Barack Obama in 2012 to serve as the nation’s fifth presidential inaugural poet. He is also a contributor to Home in Florida: Latinx Writers and the Literature of Uprootedness (University of Florida Press). The collection showcases what editor Anjanette Delgado calls “literatura del desarraigo,” a Spanish literary tradition. Home in Florida features fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by Blanco, Ana Menéndez, Caridad Moro-Gronlier, Achy Obejas, Isvett Verde and many others. These writers – first-, second-, and third-generation immigrants to Florida from places such as Cuba, Mexico, Honduras, Perú, Argentina, and Chile – reflect the diversity of Latinx experiences across the state. Together, they explore what exactly makes Florida home for those struggling between memory and presence.