PUERTO RICO, PR & NEW YORK, NY – February 11, 2016 – (HISPANICIZE WIRE) – As Puerto Ricans from the island move stateside amid the economic crisis, a discussion about the connections between those who stayed behind and those who are leaving wages on. This debate is nothing new given that the movement of Puerto Ricans to the states spans over 100 years. Yet, it has taken on a renewed zeal with the new Migrant Wave. Freshman show Puerto Rican Voices, a joint venture between the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, CUNY, and WIPR-TV in Puerto Rico, launched last season to bridge each community with the other by sharing the contributions of Puerto Ricans across several neighborhoods, including New York and Boston, two of the oldest U.S. Puerto Rican communities. The show’s second season expands its coverage, as it ventures into established and newer areas where the Puerto Rican spirit and culture lives on. It premieres February 12th digitally on Centro Voices, the Center for Puerto Rican Studies’ online magazine.

The TV show features cultural, historical, and current topics of the most vibrant Puerto Rican neighborhoods in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Hartford, Orlando, and Miami, among many others. To ensure that Puerto Rican Voices reaches the entire community, the show is completely bilingual (English and Spanish). Throughout the season, viewers will get a taste of the breadth and long-standing impact of Puerto Rican voices in the United States.

On the heels of the first season, Centro’s director, Dr. Edwin Meléndez, shares the significance of this second season, “The response from the first season showed us that we were on to something. Viewers on the island have commented on how refreshing it is to see the ways our communities maintain their culture and connection to the island alive. Puerto Ricans stateside, today more dispersed than ever, have a way to stay connected both to their communities stateside and to their community on the island. It’s empowering and reaffirming to know that we are contributing, in some way, to bringing together Puerto Ricans beyond borders; to show that despite our diverse and rich historical and contemporary reality, we can stand as one on what matters to us as a community.” Puerto Rican Voices advances Centro’s mission to preserve, understand, and share the Puerto Rican experience in the U.S.

Viewers in Puerto Rico can catch episodes on WIPR 6.1 and WIPM 3.1 starting on February 14th. Viewers in the United States and elsewhere will be able to stream the program starting on Friday, February 12th through the Centro Voices Site. You can check out the trailer for Season 2 here.

For additional information or to catch up on the first season of Puerto Rican Voices, you can check out our page http://centropr.hunter.cuny.edu/centrovoices/pr-voices.

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