Last Wednesday I attended the first Latin Caucus welcome reception at the Robeson Gallery. There was a great Latin jazz band led by Frank Villafañe, and also various latin foods for lunch, though sadly, the flan was all gone by the time I got there.Amy Ortiz, who works with the MFA program, painted the image that appeared on the cover of the event program (left).
There was a short performance by Miguel Algarin, founder of the Nuyorican Poets Café, which, if you aren't familiar with it, hosts public performances of the many varieties of poetry emerging from New York City's Puerto Rican and African-American literature. (You can check out their website, www.nuyorican.org, for more info). He is also a former chair of the Puerto Rican Studies department at Rutgers. Unfortunately I missed his reading, though I did catch him dancing at the reception before he left.
Below are some photos of the event from Saskia Agustin of the School of Public Affairs & Administration. I'm working on getting some audio/video of the band that Claudio Mir of the MFA program sent me up on our YouTube channel as well. In the meantime, you can go to Frank's mySpace page to hear his music.
Miguel Algarin (right) with Vilma Perez:
Frank Villafañe (on piano) and his band:
One of the guests tries her hand at the conga drums:
Group photo:
At left, Amy Ortiz and Adela Diaz take a break to pose for a photo.You can see Saskia's full set of photos from the event on Picasa.
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