Crisis Projects: 25 Years of AgitArte in Puerto Rico and The Global Diaspora

“What is it that we’re going to do? What’s the ima… without ignoring our limitations, but what is our best political imagination towards a completely changed landscape?” Jorge spits out ideas in rapid-fire, colloquial Puerto Rican Spanish, interrupting and correcting himself as he goes, warning me repeatedly to ask him to slow down if necessary.

We’re sitting on the breezy front terrace of the Casa Taller Cangrejera, a two-story mid century cement house in a quiet part of Santurce, the barrio of San Juan where Jorge was born and raised, that serves as AgitArte’s workshop and headquarters. Turning 50 in a few days, AgitArte founding member and Co-Director Jorge Díaz Ortiz is a veteran of many movements—and not just in Puerto Rico, where he returned in 1999 after spending the whole decade as a college student and community organizer in New England. Growing up in an independentista family, during his time there, he was further radicalized through his work with working-class Latinx and African American communities.”