LITERATURE OF THE PUERTO RICAN DIASPORA: AN OVERVIEW 5

 Fernandez, Caridad "La Bruja" de la Luz, Emanuel Xavier, Jaime "Shaggy"
 Flores, and Urayoan Noel.14
 The dramatic and performative quality of Nuyorican poetry may have
been influenced by the emerging theater scene. Miguel Pifiero, Nuyorican
poet, was also the most widely recognized and critically acclaimed of
Nuyorican playwrights. His play, Short Eyes (1974), winner of the New York
Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play of the Year (1973-74), won him many
accolades and placed him on the map of influential American dramatists.
Other attempts to create a visibly Puerto Rican ambiance in playwriting
include Miriam Col6n's Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, founded in 1967, with
the intention of taking theatrical pieces to inner city areas where the
possibilities of seeing live performances, particularly Puerto Rican
performers, were very scarce. Rosalba Rol6n's Teatro Pregones focused on
dramatic productions portraying Puerto Rican traditions, stories, and
historical events geared towards youth in public schools and universities in
the 1980s. Concern over political and social issues continues to the present
and is emblematic of such productions as Jose Rivera's Marisol (1993) and
Carmen Rivera's Julia (1992).15
 The works of writer Piri Thomas illustrate the complexities and social
tensions inherent in the civil rights era. Born in Spanish Harlem, Thomas
focuses on the violent experience of a New York City upbringing in his
autobiographies Down These Mean Streets (1967) and Savior, Savior, Hold My
Hand (1972). Contrary to Bernardo Vega and Jesus Col6n's stylistic use of
language in their works, Thomas brings forth an explosion of idiomatic
expressions and unconventional syntax. His writing is characterized by the
use of slang, cursing, and code switching between English and Spanish that
reflects the turbulent life of some inner city youth. Where Vega's tone is
formal and didactic, Thomas's tone is informal and conversational, luring
the reader into the complications of a life plagued by drug abuse, armed
robbery, and prison time.
 Thomas's preoccupation with race and identity escalate with the concept
of perceptual dissonance-the incongruity between how he identifies himself
(as Puerto Rican) and what others perceive him to be (a black man).
Interaction with his African American friend, Brewster Johnson, and their
travels through the segregated South bring to the forefront the underpinnings
of racism and discrimination that gave way to the tumultuous struggles for
civil rights. In a similar vein, writer Edwin Torres in his novels Carlito's Way
(1975) and Q & A (1977) portrays fictional recreations of street life loosely
based on his upbringing in the same neighborhoods as Piri Thomas. The
violent and crude depictions of urban ghetto life presented in Torres's works
rival those of Thomas's autobiographical scenes. In Family Installments (1972),
Edward Rivera charts his migration journey from the island to New York and
then, like Thomas and Torres, focuses on the difficulties of growing up in an
environment that demands street-smart, instinctual methods of survival in