The Puerto Rican Literature Project

1. Why Do It and 2. Making the Case

About PLPR

Welcome to the Puerto Rican Literature Project (PLPR), a bilingual digital archive dedicated to documenting and celebrating the lives and cultural contributions of Puerto Rican writers from both the archipelago and the diaspora, in Spanish, English, and Spanglish. Created by a team of writers, scholars, translators, and digital humanists with the generous support of the Mellon Foundation, this portal is the result of years of dedication and collective effort. As a dynamic and ever-growing archive, PLPR continues to expand, incorporating the works of novelists, short story writers, playwrights, and other creative prose authors.

PLPR is a free, user-friendly, and open-access digital resource designed for both academic and general audiences, in the U.S., Puerto Rico, and beyond. It serves as an essential tool for learning and teaching contemporary and historical Puerto Rican poetry, reflecting the ongoing literary and cultural exchanges between Puerto Rico and the world. By consolidating and amplifying Puerto Rican poetic voices, this platform serves diverse communities of readers while broadening access to Puerto Rican literature through the collection, transcription, and translation of poetic works—many of which were previously scattered across various archives or inaccessible to the public.

As a vital resource for scholars, particularly those studying the Caribbean, the PRLP site underscores Puerto Rico’s shared history of colonization, slavery, and military intervention with the broader Caribbean and Latin America. At the same time, it highlights the island’s literary tradition, which both documents colonial legacies and fosters decolonial counter-narratives. This platform celebrates Puerto Rican poetry in all its forms, creating a space where readers from Puerto Rico, the diaspora, and beyond can engage with one another’s work, recognize shared struggles, and deepen their understanding of these interconnected histories.

Team Leadership

Gabriela Baeza Ventura, Deputy Director, Arte Público Pres; Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage Program; US Latino Digital Humanities Center; University of Houston

Lorena Gauthereau, PhD, Digital Programs Manager, Arte Público Press

Claire Jiménez, PhD, Assistant Professor of English and African American Studies, University of South Carolina

Ricardo Maldonado, PhD, President and Executive Director, Academy of American Poets

Enrique Olivares Pesante, ABD, University of California, Los Angeles

Roque Raquel Salas Rivera, PhD, poet, educator, and translator (2021-2023)

Carolina Villarroel, PhD, CA, Director of Research, Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage; US Latino Digital Humanities Center, Arte Público Press

Project Manager

Miriam Damaris Maldonado

Arte Público Press Staff

Ayda Abyar, Financial Coordinator (2021-2023)

Ana Cantú, Financial Coordinator

Linda García Merchant, USLDH Postdoctoral Fellow (2021-2023)

Nellie Gonzalez, Business Administrator

Yamaris D. (Dianne) Pacheco Rodríguez, Intern

Ivette Román Roberto, Project Manager (2022)

Mikaela Selley, CA

Arte Público Press Research Fellows

Maribel Bello

Iván Brave

Andrea Cuevas

Yanina Hernández

Elías David Navarro

Perla Ortiz

Camilo Rodríguez

Carolina Suárez Latorre

Alaíde Ventura Medina

Advisory Board

Nicolás Kanellos, PhD, Arte Público Press

Luis Negrón, Founder, Librería La Esquina

Ángel Antonio Ruiz Laboy, Associate Director of Arts and Culture, The Center for Puerto Rican Studies

Mayra Santos-Febres, PhD, Universidad de Puerto Rico

Alyssa Villegas, M.F.A.

Artists

José Arturo Ballesta

Bibiana Suárez

Yasmín Hernández

Focus Group

Essah Díaz, The Center for Puerto Rican Studies

Sabrina Ramos Rubén, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras

Rojo Robles, PhD, Baruch College

Rosa Scott, Rosa Scott Consulting

Kelly Villar, Staten Island Urban Center

Research and Outreach Specialists

Ana Castillo Muñoz, writer, (April 2021-2024)

Ana Portnoy Brimmer, writer and translator, (April 2021-2024)

Translators

Alejandro Álvarez Nieves, PhD, University of Puerto Rico

Urayoán Noel, PhD, New York University

Sabrina Ramos Ruben, graduate student, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras

Carina del Valle Schorske, PhD, independent writer and translator

Roque Raquel Salas Rivera, PhD, independent poet, educator, and translator (2021-2023)

Web development

Anneliese Dehner, Independent Digital Library Developer

Collaborators

The Center for Puerto Rican Studies

Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (ICP)

Tesoro Lexicográfico de Puerto Rico

Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras (UPR)

Collections

This project includes published and unpublished works. Permissions were obtained for all materials and citations are provided below each work. Repositories for archival materials are listed below.  

Archivo General de Puerto Rico, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña

Arte Público Press

Colección Puertorriqueña, Biblioteca Lázaro, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras

The Center for Puerto Rican Studies

Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage Program

Works

Selection of Works

Poets from both the Puerto Rican archipelago and the diaspora were invited to participate in PLPR, fostering an inclusive literary space that highlights diverse poetic voices and strengthens cultural identity.

At the project's inception, Colectivo members and the Advisory Board curated a list of potential poets. The PLPR team personally reached out to poets and issued a bilingual call for submissions on social media, inviting Puerto Rican poets to contribute their work. Additionally, the team researched archival materials for inclusion (see list of archives above).

Poets submitted one to three poems along with biographical details. All submissions were accepted, and Arte Público Press secured publication permissions from presses, poets, or their estates. Previously published works were transcribed manually and through optical character recognition (OCR) software. Digital files were meticulously compared to the originals to preserve formatting accuracy and were saved under unique filenames categorized by author.

Biographies

PLPR team members and Research and Outreach Specialists authored the biographies, which were later revised, updated, and translated. Biographical information was gathered from author questionnaires, online sources, books, archival materials, and confidential interviews. Due to privacy requests, these interviews will remain unpublished.

Whenever possible, authors provided photos for their biographies. Additional images were sourced from archives and other reputable sources.

Translations

PLPR’s translators are specialists in Puerto Rican dialect with extensive experience in the field. Each translation was crafted with meticulous care, preserving rhyme, structure, tone, and meaning to honor linguistic and cultural nuances.

Metadata

Metadata was generated using controlled vocabulary from the Library of Congress (LOC) and supplemented with a local vocabulary when suitable LOC subject headings were unavailable. All metadata was created bilingually (English and Spanish).

To streamline collaboration across different geographical locations, the PLPR team used Google Drive for metadata creation and organization. Author biographies and works were mapped using approximate locations, plotted with latitude and longitude coordinates. Map points were centered on the specified location (city, state, country, or geographical feature). Citations followed the guidelines of the 9th edition of the MLA Handbook.

Focus Groups

Experts in Puerto Rican studies were recruited to provide feedback on the portal’s functionality, navigation, and content through written evaluations and meetings. Their insights informed site improvements and guided the development of a dissemination plan.

Equipment & Technologies

ArcGIS StoryMaps

Canon EOS Rebel T7i DSLR Camera

CZUR Aura X-P Portable Document Scanner

Google Drive

HTML-cleaner

Konica Minolta ScanDIVA (Book & Large Format Scanner)

NewOCR (for OCR process)

Omeka S (web-publishing platform)

Otter.ai

pCloud (Cloud storage)

ScanPro 3500 (Microfilm Scanner)

Scanning Utility 800 (Scanning Software for Canon MS-800)

Zoom

4. Share the Docs

Methodology

USLDH Best Practices: https://artepublicopress.com/digital-humanities/

ADA Compliance

The page design was chosen in accordance with ADA Website Compliance standards to enhance readability for visually impaired users. To improve data discoverability and optimize repository functionality, PLPR enlisted a graphic designer and a developer to create a custom bilingual (Spanish/English) landing page.

The site features both simple keyword searches and advanced filtering options, allowing users to search by title, location, year, subject headings, and publisher. These enhancements ensure a more accessible and user-friendly experience for the public.

Archival Approach

Recovery adheres to national standards for processing and digitization established by NARA, ISO, and the Library of Congress for metadata. It also incorporates Bilindex for Spanish descriptors and SEARS, maintaining ongoing communication with communities of practice involved in each project.

Original analog materials are scanned to create uncompressed .tiff files at 300dpi (24-bit depth, color), while microfilm is digitized as uncompressed .tiff files at 300dpi (8-bit depth, grayscale). Derivative files, including JPEG, PDF, and TXT, are generated from each TIFF file.

Additionally, Recovery follows the Best Practices outlined by USLDH, which guide all archival and digital work produced by the program. More details can be found here: USLDH Best Practices: https://artepublicopress.com/digital-humanities/

Data Storage and Backup

All working documents were stored in a shared Google Drive and backed up on pCloud storage. The stored data includes text and images in both English and Spanish, with files in the following formats: DOC, DOCX, PDF, TIFF, JPEG, and PNG.

Public data will be accessible through the cloud-based repository, while private interview data will remain restricted per agreements with the poets. USLDH will archive the data and its documentation in perpetuity, ensuring long-term accessibility through evolving technologies, media, and data formats.

Mapping

Maps on the author biographies and poem pages display approximate locations using latitude and longitude coordinates, with points centered on the specified location (city, state, country, or geographical feature).

Additionally, an interactive map highlighting author and publication locations from the 1970s was created using ArcGIS StoryMaps.