Beyond the Fiesta Island

• In Event: Critical Karaoke

Abstract

In 1953, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico’s Visitors Bureau launched a campaign in the United States that included a short film that represented Puerto Rico as a “fiesta island,” “a vacation paradise twelve months of the year.” But beyond the “fiesta island” – and parallel to the neocolonial state and liberal democracy depicted in the film – lies the development of a vibrant, local live-music industry whose history helps us understand the Puerto Rican state in relation to its music and cultural sectors. My critical karaoke set will narrate a self-produced short documentary juxtaposing “the fiesta island” with a more complex set of images that reveal the limits imposed by colonial and liberal democratic legacies on live-music production and Puerto Rican cultural diversity.

Anilyn Diaz Hernandez is a Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Puerto Rico, and an active event producer in San Juan. She received her PhD in Communication from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Author

• Anilyn Diaz-Hernandez, U of Puerto Rico at Arecibo