Trailblazing Puerto Rican women in the diaspora have challenged dominant imagery and fought against patriarchy, U.S. imperialism, and white supremacy through their writing. Writers like Esmeralda Santiago and Nicholasa Mohr have transformed the literary canon via the bildungsroman, highlighting the unique struggles of Boricua girlhood and proving that our stories matter. Two prominent female Boricua writers today, Elisabet Velasquez and Gabby Rivera, have raised the baton that has been passed down to them and revolutionized the Diasporican literary canon. In their respective texts, When We Make It: A Nuyorican Novel and Juliet Takes a Breath, Velasquez and Rivera highlight the liminal spaces between the distant motherland that is Puerto Rico and the repressive colonial entity that is the United States. Moreover, the protagonists of each text, Sarai and Juliet Palante, grapple with interlocking systems of oppression as their literal growing up is mirrored by their growing sociopolitical consciousness. These are classic formulas utilized by a vast number of Puerto Rican writers in the diaspora. However, Velasquez and Rivera have fashioned a new formula for Puerto Rican female writers and the Diasporican coming-of-age narrative as a whole. Instead of having protagonists who ultimately accept assimilation and hatch plans to get closer to the American Dream – an issue present in multiple Diasporican texts by women that will be investigated more in detail later in this paper – Sarai and Juliet discard the idea of the white-collar job and picket fence, embrace their roots, and endure what Sandra Ruiz calls “colonial time” by engaging in anticolonial practices.
","abstract_html":"<p>Trailblazing Puerto Rican women in the diaspora have challenged dominant imagery and fought against patriarchy, U.S. imperialism, and white supremacy through their writing. Writers like Esmeralda Santiago and Nicholasa Mohr have transformed the literary canon via the bildungsroman, highlighting the unique struggles of Boricua girlhood and proving that our stories matter. Two prominent female Boricua writers today, Elisabet Velasquez and Gabby Rivera, have raised the baton that has been passed down to them and revolutionized the Diasporican literary canon. In their respective texts, When We Make It: A Nuyorican Novel and Juliet Takes a Breath, Velasquez and Rivera highlight the liminal spaces between the distant motherland that is Puerto Rico and the repressive colonial entity that is the United States. Moreover, the protagonists of each text, Sarai and Juliet Palante, grapple with interlocking systems of oppression as their literal growing up is mirrored by their growing sociopolitical consciousness. These are classic formulas utilized by a vast number of Puerto Rican writers in the diaspora. However, Velasquez and Rivera have fashioned a new formula for Puerto Rican female writers and the Diasporican coming-of-age narrative as a whole. Instead of having protagonists who ultimately accept assimilation and hatch plans to get closer to the American Dream – an issue present in multiple Diasporican texts by women that will be investigated more in detail later in this paper – Sarai and Juliet discard the idea of the white-collar job and picket fence, embrace their roots, and endure what Sandra Ruiz calls “colonial time” by engaging in anticolonial practices.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Alvarado, Lily V"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Master of Arts (M.A.)","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"English","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Lyn Di Iorio","Václav Paris"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2024,"date_issued":"2024-01-01T08:00:00Z","date_published":"2024-01-01T08:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T01:58:07Z","subjects":["Puerto Rican Studies","Literature","Elisabet Velasquez","Gabby Rivera","Diaspora","Postcolonialism","Arts and Humanities","Comparative Literature"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_etds_theses/1225","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Lyn Di Iorio","Václav Paris"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Alvarado, Lily V"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2024-05-15T07:00:00Z"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["English"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Master of Arts (M.A.)"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Puerto Rican Studies","Literature","Elisabet Velasquez","Gabby Rivera","Diaspora","Postcolonialism","Arts and Humanities","Comparative Literature"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_etds_theses/1225"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["Trailblazing Puerto Rican women in the diaspora have challenged dominant imagery and fought against patriarchy, U.S. imperialism, and white supremacy through their writing. Writers like Esmeralda Santiago and Nicholasa Mohr have transformed the literary canon via the bildungsroman, highlighting the unique struggles of Boricua girlhood and proving that our stories matter. Two prominent female Boricua writers today, Elisabet Velasquez and Gabby Rivera, have raised the baton that has been passed down to them and revolutionized the Diasporican literary canon. In their respective texts, When We Make It: A Nuyorican Novel and Juliet Takes a Breath, Velasquez and Rivera highlight the liminal spaces between the distant motherland that is Puerto Rico and the repressive colonial entity that is the United States. Moreover, the protagonists of each text, Sarai and Juliet Palante, grapple with interlocking systems of oppression as their literal growing up is mirrored by their growing sociopolitical consciousness. These are classic formulas utilized by a vast number of Puerto Rican writers in the diaspora. However, Velasquez and Rivera have fashioned a new formula for Puerto Rican female writers and the Diasporican coming-of-age narrative as a whole. Instead of having protagonists who ultimately accept assimilation and hatch plans to get closer to the American Dream – an issue present in multiple Diasporican texts by women that will be investigated more in detail later in this paper – Sarai and Juliet discard the idea of the white-collar job and picket fence, embrace their roots, and endure what Sandra Ruiz calls “colonial time” by engaging in anticolonial practices.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["From Bushwick to Portland: Bori Girls of the Diaspora Revolutionizing the Puerto Rican Coming-of-Age Narrative"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Lyn Di Iorio","Václav Paris"],"dc:creator":["Alvarado, Lily V"],"dc:date.available":["2024-05-15T07:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["Trailblazing Puerto Rican women in the diaspora have challenged dominant imagery and fought against patriarchy, U.S. imperialism, and white supremacy through their writing. Writers like Esmeralda Santiago and Nicholasa Mohr have transformed the literary canon via the bildungsroman, highlighting the unique struggles of Boricua girlhood and proving that our stories matter. Two prominent female Boricua writers today, Elisabet Velasquez and Gabby Rivera, have raised the baton that has been passed down to them and revolutionized the Diasporican literary canon. In their respective texts, When We Make It: A Nuyorican Novel and Juliet Takes a Breath, Velasquez and Rivera highlight the liminal spaces between the distant motherland that is Puerto Rico and the repressive colonial entity that is the United States. Moreover, the protagonists of each text, Sarai and Juliet Palante, grapple with interlocking systems of oppression as their literal growing up is mirrored by their growing sociopolitical consciousness. These are classic formulas utilized by a vast number of Puerto Rican writers in the diaspora. However, Velasquez and Rivera have fashioned a new formula for Puerto Rican female writers and the Diasporican coming-of-age narrative as a whole. Instead of having protagonists who ultimately accept assimilation and hatch plans to get closer to the American Dream – an issue present in multiple Diasporican texts by women that will be investigated more in detail later in this paper – Sarai and Juliet discard the idea of the white-collar job and picket fence, embrace their roots, and endure what Sandra Ruiz calls “colonial time” by engaging in anticolonial practices.
"],"dc:identifier":["https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_etds_theses/1225"],"dc:subject":["Puerto Rican Studies","Literature","Elisabet Velasquez","Gabby Rivera","Diaspora","Postcolonialism","Arts and Humanities","Comparative Literature"],"dc:title":["From Bushwick to Portland: Bori Girls of the Diaspora Revolutionizing the Puerto Rican Coming-of-Age Narrative"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["English"],"thesis:degree_level":["Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["Master of Arts (M.A.)"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T01:58:07Z"}