Most stories of migration are about leaving. This book is about coming back. Stories of Return / Cuentos del retorno: Bilingual Dimensions of Puerto Rican Migrations, edited by Carmen Haydée Rivera Vega, gathers Puerto Rican stories by writers from the island and the diaspora about going home, staying, leaving again and living in between. The anthology is available from Editora Educación Emergente.
Written in Spanish, English and Spanglish, these stories tell what it means to come back.
Highlights of Stories of Return
Giannina Braschi and Tess O’Dwyer contribute the dramatic dialogue “El arte del destierro.” Mayra Santos Febres writes on returns, repatriations and round trips. Willie Perdomo revisits the spaces of his block in “Those Block Spaces,” and Urayoán Noel improvises a poem while walking around Bronx Park. Roque Raquel Salas Rivera is in conversation with Yolanda Rivera Castillo, and spoken word performer Caridad De La Luz, “La Bruja,” charts the path “From Nuyorico to Paraíso.” Chronicles, memoirs and testimonies from art, journalism and medicine round out the volume.
I don’t long to return. I don’t return to belong. I return to originate. And I return to find my collective originality. Originality is to return to the origin. Y mi originalidad colectiva es la gente. El pueblo es el coro de mi originalidad. Lo que pensamos, sentimos, chismeamos, vivimos, soñamos. Y esto nace de nuestras entrañas. Es visceral. Es un olfato colectivo. Que huele lo que está mal y lo que está bien. Y en ese olfato colectivo está nuestra originalidad. Que es lo que nos une como pueblo.
Giannina Braschi, “El arte del destierro”
Puerto Rican anthology of stories of migration
It is well known that Puerto Rican identities are multiple, diverse, elastic. Sometimes they are still, like little curls of water peeking out on the sands of the island’s south. Others are better captured by the metaphor of a thunderous Atlantic swell. Above all since the U.S. invasion of the archipelago, Puerto Rican lives have been forged in a journey that, very often, was not exactly chosen. Bodies, families, friendships, generations, languages, longings and anxieties are traced in our going as much as in our staying, in our leaving as much as in our coming back.
This Puerto Rican literature anthology is an ode to that transit as a way of life. But unlike much of the existing material, Carmen Haydée Rivera Vega’s careful and loving curation and editing of Stories of Return / Cuentos del retorno: Bilingual Dimensions of Puerto Rican Migrations highlights returns rather than departures. It does so by honoring the many linguistic codes that make up our expressive richness, along with a significant share of our artistic, cultural, intellectual and medical work.
A glance at the table of contents is enough to sense the valuable diversity of people who have offered their essential words to this choral book.
This volume, which we are honored to include in Editora Educación Emergente’s Crónica otra series, invites us to approach our stories, even amid historical and present-day sorrows, through celebration and recognition of Boricua fullness.
Stories of Return / Cuentos del retorno: Bilingual Dimensions of Puerto Rican Migration
Table of Contents
Introduction
Stories from Puerto Rico
“Desde la ternura,” una conversación entre Roque Raquel Salas Rivera y Yolanda Rivera Castillo
“Homing,” Aurora Levins Morales
“Notes on the wreckage,” Guillermo Rebollo Gil
“De retornos, repatriaciones y viajes de ida y vuelta,” Mayra Santos Febres
“Casa de Arte y Cultura de la Playa De Ponce: la Casa de la Arteología,” Diógenes Ballester
“La Matria Reclaims Another Daughter,” Lola Rosario
“Reflexiones y recuerdos de un oncólogo puertorriqueño,” Fernando Cabanillas
“A Journey of Migration, Return, and Memory,” Jennet Rodríguez Betancourt
“‘But I Left:’ A Short Account of Returns,” Ivette Romero
“Rematriating Sovereignty: My Journey from Diaspora to Archipelago and the Warriors Who Led the Way,” Yasmín Hernández Quirindongo
Stories from the Diaspora
“El arte del destierro,” Giannina Braschi and Tess O’Dwyer
“De aquí y de allá,” Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa
“Those Block Spaces: A Semi-Autobiographical Note,” Willie Perdomo
“Improvised While Walking Around Bronx Park,” Urayoán Noel
“Where Are You From?,” Luisita López Torregrosa
“SJU-ATL-DTW,” Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes
“Tanteos, marejadas y des-orientaciones: notas para el regreso de nunca acabar,” Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel
“Volver y recordar tal vez son actos colectivos,” Sherina Feliciano-Santos
“Sexiled No Longer: The Art of Coming Home,” Anjanette Delgado
“From Nuyorico to Paraíso,” Caridad De La Luz
About the Editor
Carmen Haydée Rivera Vega is Professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico, College of Humanities. Her teaching and research focus on diasporic Puerto Rican writers in the U.S., contemporary U.S. Latinx literature, the literature of Caribbean migration, and women’s studies. Her books include Border Crossings and Beyond: The Life and Works of Sandra Cisneros (2009) and Diasporic Journeys: Interviews with Contemporary Puerto Rican Writers in the United States (2023). She has also edited two collections of critical essays: Cuba and Puerto Rico: Transdisciplinary Approaches to History, Literature, and Culture (2023) and Writing Off the Hyphen: New Perspectives on the Literature of the Puerto Rican Diaspora (2008).
More Puerto Rican Literature
To keep reading, explore Puerto Rican poetry from the island and the diaspora, the guide to essential Puerto Rican novels from the 19th century to today, and all posts on Puerto Rican writers and literature.
To reserve a copy, email editora@editoraemergente.com.
Stories of Return / Cuentos del retorno, ed. Carmen Haydée Rivera Vega. Crónica otra series, Editora Educación Emergente. ISBN 979-8-3507-6245-7. #LiberaTuLectura
Editorial note. This post was produced by the editorial team of the site based on publisher’s information. Updated October 2026.