SOMOS 2024

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About Our Presenters

Odette Casamayor-Cisneros is Associate Professor of Latin American & Caribbean Cultural Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Inaugural Roberto C. Goizueta Distinguished Presidential Fellow at the University of Miami’s Cuban Heritage Collection. Centered on the Afro-Latin American and Afro-Latinx experiences, Professor Casamayor’s current work examines self-identification processes and the production of counter-hegemonic knowledge in the global African Diaspora. Previous publications include the 2013 book Utopia, dystopia e ingravidez: reconfiguraciones cosmológicas en la narrativa postsoviética cubana and the collection of stories Una casa en los Catskills (2016). Her numerous award-winning academic, journalistic, and literary works are featured in renowned publications such as Small Axe, Transition, Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies, Cuban Studies, Bulletin of Latin American Review, and Cahiers d’études africaines. Casamayor-Cisneros earned a Ph.D. in Arts and Literature at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), in Paris, and holds a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Havana. Fellowships and grants from, among others, Harvard University, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the UNESCO have supported her research. Learn more at https://www.instagram.com/odettecasamayor/

Dimitri Reyes is a Boricua multidisciplinary artist, content creator, and educator from Newark, New Jersey. He has been named one of The Best New Latinx Authors of 2023 by LatinoStories.com for his most recent book, Papi Pichón (Get Fresh Books, 2023), which was a finalist for the Omnidawn chapbook contest and the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. His other books include Every First and Fifteenth, the Digging Press 2020 Chapbook Award winner, and the poetry journal Shadow Work for Poets, now available on Amazon. Reyes’s work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and you can find more of his writing in Poem-a-Day, Vinyl, Kweli, & Acentos. In 2023, he was also part of the inaugural poetry cohort for the Poets & Writers Get The Word Out publishing incubator. Reyes is also the Marketing & Communications Director at CavanKerry Press. Learn more about Reyes by visiting his website at https://www.dimitrireyespoet.com/

Keishla (Kay-shla) Rivera-Lopez is a literary and cultural studies scholar, writer, and poet specializing in Latina/o and Caribbean literature, Latinx Studies, and Puerto Rican Studies with a focus on Latinidad, cultural production, archives, and memory. Rivera-Lopez was born and raised in Newark, NJ to Puerto Rican migrants and reflects on what it means to be a child of diaspora in her scholarship and writing. In her free time she enjoys writing poetry, short stories, plays, and essays. Her writing has been published in Centro Journal, Label Me Latina/o Journal, Hispanofila Journal, The Acentos Review, Decolonial Passage, The Newarker, and The Journal for Latina Feminist Criticism. To learn more, visit keishlariveralopez.com

Originally from Havana, Cuba, Amilcar Ortiz is an Afro-Caribbean film and media maker who is captivated by individuals of all cultures and seeks to awaken our own empowerment through narratives that challenge manipulations and denials. Ortiz studied film and television with a concentration in Editing at the School of Media and Audiovisual Communications of the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA), and recently finished a Master of Arts in Individualized Study, with a concentration in documentary film, photography, and socio-cultural issues at Gallatin School of Individualized Studies (NYU). Ortiz has been researching and working on issues related to racial discrimination, and the cultural contributions of the African Diaspora in Cuba. He has a particular interest in documenting and visualizing the richness of Afro-Cubans’ everyday anti-racist work. Ortiz is currently working on a video series that addresses racial issues in Cuba, for which he has been filming for years.

The Young Picassos are a musical collaborative with a distinct contemporary Caribbean sound. The experience of our music is a seamless flow over a mix of genres such as Soca, R&B, Hip-Hop, Pop, and Neo-Soul. We are passionate about our gifts and believe it is our calling to spread the culture and our love for the arts to the world. To learn more, visit https://www.theyoungpicassos.com/