SOURCE: Esterrich, Carmelo. “Home and the Ruins of Language: Victor Hernández Cruz and Miguel Algarin's Nuyorican Poetry.” MELUS 23, no. 3 (Fall 1998): 43-56.

In the following review, Esterrich discusses the “Nuyorican” poetry of Cruz and Miguel Algarin as addressing issues of identity and language through a fusion of Puerto Rican and U.S. culture.

I have a small fence that surrounds my fair home where I propose and propound where I invent and discover. 

Tengo una verjita, que rodea mi lindo hogar, donde propongo y pongo, donde invento y encuentro. 

—Miguel Algarin, “Dónde/Where”.

Y tampoco importa el lenguaje de metaje tantos verbos y adjetivos que? and neither does it matter the language of goalage so many verbs and adjectives what? 

—Victor Hernández Cruz, “Grafo-Mundo”.

“Nuyorican”¹ writing has always been caught in the critical cross-fire between two national spaces—Puerto Rico and the U.S.—and between...