Importance of Culture

In both Bodega Dreams and Dreaming in Cuban certain characters express the need to forgo their pasts in order to move on and live in white America, but then realize that their own personal identities are not complete without their cultural background.  Both Chino and Lourdes feel like they should not act Latino/Latina since they are pursuing the dreams in America and they want to act like white Americans do.  Eventually they both come to embrace their family’s culture and the area which they live and become better in the long run from it.

            Chino is a young college student who is struggling to raise his unborn child and support his wife Blanca.  He ends up getting mixed together with Willie Bodega, an up and coming drug lord, and his whole dream gets turned upside down.  Willie eventually realizes after Bodega’s death that he cannot change his heritage and should find happiness within his culture.  He sees that life in the barrio goes on and is able to support himself with what Willie has taught him and everyone else in the community.

            Lourdes moves to America and starts a bakery that has a patriotic theme.  She ends up becoming successful, but then everything falls apart with the relationship between her husband causing her to forego her ways and go back to Cuba.  She realizes that her family is what is important and without that she would have no one to be close to.

            Both characters end up going different directions than their intended plans.  They realize that family and having a strong heritage can correlate with the American Dream, and acting out white America is not what will make them happy.  The find it in themselves to protect and value their own families and culture, which in turn makes them a better mother, husband, and friend.

             

           

            

Bodega Dreams

Bodega Dreams tells a lot of truths about the mindset a lot of people grow up with.  Finding an own personal identity in a big city can be a struggle with so many negative influences.  Willie Bodega in Bodega Dreams grows up with these struggles which can be seen through his conflicts with his peers and his own personal quest for greatness.
The knowledge that Willie has learned growing up did not come from a book or from school, it is street knowledge; and since that is all he knows that is how he bases his life.

Urayoan Noel

On April 12, 1976  Tomas Urayoan Noel Martinez was born in Puerto Rico; but goes by Urayoan Noel. Urayoan Noel  received his B.A. at the University at Puerto Rico, his M.A from Stanford and his Ph.D. from NYU and is now a poet as well as an Assistant Professor of English at the University at Albany SUNY.
His areas of research  include Latino/Latina culture, poetry of the Americas, and United States poetry since 1950.  He currently lives in the Bronx, New York.
Noel has put an emphasis on his research on questions of performance, translation, circulation, and the relationships between the aesthetics and politics in North America. Photo credit goes to Urayoan Noel on his website http://urayoannoel.com/
He is known today for being a poet that has questioned the American government, a translator, and a scholar. Currently, he is a fellow on the Bronx Council on the Arts, as well as a Ford Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Puerto Rican studies at Hunter College. Information can be found at http://urayoannoel.com.
The poems by Urayoan Noel in the anthology The Wind Shifts can be appreciated by Latino/Latina people who have been treated unfairly by the American government because the poems address the problems people, especially from Puerto Rico, have gone through since their emergence in the United States.
Noel's most famous poem is Kool Logic/ La logica kool. This poem is presented in both English and Spanish which reinforces his bi-lingual background as well as shows the problems of capitalism reach out to a far wider crowd than just English speaking people.  Each stanza has the phrase, "This is the kool logic/Of late capitalism". The problems shown are varied, ranging from mindsets of people in the Americas as well as the problems Noel sees with love and values.
Noel seems to think that poems are also meant to be heard, not just read.  He has a DVD of his performances as well as a YouTube account that has many Spanish and English poems recorded that he keeps up with daily, which can be found here http://www.youtube.com/user/urayoannoel.  I do not think Noel wants to be a recorded artists, but rather be heard both in a serious manner regarding the problems he sees in society but with a hint of care free living.