4 CARMEN HAYDEE RIVERA

Luis Rafael SAnchez's "flying bus" metaphor. This corpus of writing, for the
most part, presents a bleak and desolate picture of Puerto Rican life in New
York marked by a strong sense of nostalgia and yearning for return to the
island. Conditions of hostility and exclusion are set against a romanticized
view of the island. Songwriters and singers of the period, such as Noel
Estrada, Rafael HernAndez, and Bobby Cap6, also reiterate this longing for
the "island paradise" in their music.
 The third period of Puerto Rican migration to the United States included
 in Clara Rodriguez's discussion begins in 1965 and continues to this day.
 The most important historical events to mark this period of Puerto Rican
 migration were those related to the struggles for civil rights and social justice
 during the late 1960s and 1970s. Puerto Ricans, united with other minority
 groups (Chicano/as, African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans),
 fought against segregation and discrimination and, through social activism
 and organization, demanded respect for their civil rights, social equality,
 and wider recognition of their contributions to a multicultural American
 society.12 These struggles resulted in increased visibility, concern for their
 social needs, the formation of interdisciplinary academic areas in major
 universities, and eventually, attention to unedited or formerly inaccessible
 literary works.
 The auto-denominated Nuyorican Poets' incursion onto the literary scene
in the early years of the 1970s was initially marked by explosive social protest
poems-for example, Pedro Pietri's "Puerto Rican Obituary"-which were
influenced by the political unrest of the period but gradually developed other
concerns related to issues of identity and language. What began as casual
yet energetic conversations and poetry readings at Miguel Algarin's house
gave way to live performances-the precursors of today's poetry slams-at
the Nuyorican Poets'Caf6, founded in 1974 by Algarin and Miguel Pifiero in
Manhattan's Lower East Side, or better known to denizens as "Loisaida."
Poetic expression consisted of a new linguistic code that mixed Spanish and
English vocabulary and syntax. The structure of the poems resulted from
juxtapositions of narrative forms and slang poetic diction while the readings
were characterized by performance and often accompanied by music. The
poets stressed the importance of oral traditions and integration with the
public.
 Nuyorican poetry denounces a racist, classicist, exclusionary society that
ignores cultural diversity and suppresses awareness of a Puerto Rican
historical legacy. The poetry of Miguel Algarin, Miguel Pifiero, Sandra Maria
Est6ves, and Pedro Pietri captures the essence of this social protest.13
Meanwhile, other poets such as Tato Laviera in works like La Carreta Made a
U-Turn (1979) and AmeRican (1985) and Willie Perdomo in When a Nickel
Cost a Dime (1996) celebrate and reaffirm the bilingual, bicultural self as a
proud contributing member of American society. Their legacy lives on in
the words of a new generation of Nuyorican poets like Maria "Mariposa"