When people think of the Nuyorican Poets Café, inevitably Miguel Algarín, Miguel Piñero, and Pedro Pietri come to mind; but how often do they think of Sandra María Esteves? In the early 1970s, these four founded the café, which became a critical site in New York City's Lower East Side (known to its Spanish-speaking residents as “Loisaida”) for New York's Puerto Rican community, also known as Nuyoricans, to form a “Nuyorican aesthetic through art, poetry, theater, and performance” (3). Although the café continues to play a major role in Nuyorican performing arts, women such as Esteves have largely been unrecognized in favor of privileging the contributions of the men in this movement—until now. Nuyorican Feminist Performance: From the Café to Hip Hop Theater by Patricia Herrera troubles the male-centered historical record of the poetry and theatre scene in the Nuyorican community. The book examines women in New York performance history and, as a result, places Nuyoricans at the forefront by recovering the feminist artistic efforts of poets, spoken-word artists, and hip-hop theatre makers who strategically use performance as a tool for social change. Herrera contests patriarchal accounts of history by essentially filling a critical gap in our understanding of the varied contributions of women in the New York Puerto Rican civil rights and corresponding arts movements.

Nuyorican Feminist Performance recovers foundational work by Esteves, Martita Morales, Luz Rodriguez, and Amina Muñoz in the 1970s and 1980s, which spawned the performing arts contributions of contemporary artists such as La Bruja, Mariposa, Aya de León, and Nilaja Sun. Whereas several scholars—namely Imani Perry, Tricia Rose, Gwendolyn D. Pough, and Kyra D. Gaunt—have uncovered the work of women in hip-hop, Patricia Herrera is the first to analyze the aesthetic and feminist work of female Nuyorican performers from the 1970s to the early 2000s. As the book reveals, this work is intrinsically tied to notions of identity, gender, citizenship, and belonging. Accordingly, Herrera positions the work of these women within a definitively Nuyorican feminist aesthetic. Herrera defines Nuyorican feminist aesthetics as cultural production by Latina artists that is used “to raise consciousness, generate collective knowledge-making forums, and cultivate healing practices” (5).

The book's Prologue and first chapter provide an overview of its contributions. Although these two feel circular at times, they give valuable detail about the café, Latinx theatre, hip-hop feminism, and Nuyorican hip-hop feminist performances. Chapter 2 lays the groundwork for what is to come by foregrounding the male-centered narrative of the Nuyorican arts movement. As Herrera explores, women have been systematically erased from histories of political organizations such as the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, Young Lords, and, by extension, politically minded artistic collectives like the Nuyorican Poets Café. Like many community spaces during the civil rights movement, the café served as a significant place for the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and Young Lords to organize. Indeed, the lines between activism and performance were often blurred. Even so, the masculinist ethos of these communities made it increasingly difficult for women to persevere in these spaces. As Herrera claims, “Puerto Rican activists, artists, and poets living in New York City who participated in the Nuyorican movement served as cultural agents challenging racial and economic injustices. However, gender injustice was strikingly absent from their critiques” (20). The café fought for racial and ethnic, but not gender, equality.

In Chapters 3 and 4, Herrera shifts the focus to women who helped form the café—performers such as Esteves, Morales, Rodriguez, and Muñoz. By engaging in performances of poetry and theatre that doubled as a community conversation with audiences, these women established a Latina consciousness within the Nuyorican aesthetic that enabled them to trouble hegemonic notions of class, ethnicity, race, and gender within the Nuyorican Poets Café community. Notably, their work was dedicated to creating a dialogue with those in attendance, which, in turn, could lead to social change. For example, Esteves's play The Lawsuit was a “theatrical event, demonstrating the gender dynamics at play in the Nuyorican poetry and theater scene” (65–6). The play, set in a small-claims court in New York City, focused on Esteves's personal conflict with male members of the café. Such works did not occur in a vacuum; by cementing their place and giving women voice and agency, they have enabled contemporary performers to continue to engage with a feminist Nuyorican aesthetic.

The following three chapters build on this foundational work by examining the work of contemporary performers. These artists—La Bruja, Mariposa, de León, and Sun—were inspired and mentored by the founding women of the Nuyorican Poets Café. As such, their poetic and theatrical artistic practice continues to expand notions of Nuyorican identity and hip-hop aesthetics. These artists engage with hip-hop in a more pronounced way than the previous generation, essentially making more explicit their alignment to the experiences and traditions of New York's African American community. These chapters demonstrate the shared histories of the Afro-diasporic community, especially as it relates to African American and Latinx community-building and aesthetic practices, not to mention the work of Afro-Latinx performers.

The final chapter explores spiritual performances within the scope of Nuyorican hip-hop feminist aesthetics. Engaging with the work of Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, and Laura Pérez, Herrera demonstrates how the spiritual discourse used by women in the café, such as Esteves, has been pivotal to both consciousness raising and political mobilization. Performers engage audiences in various processes of ritual healing, which provides the community with a sense of belonging. Audiences witnessed and enacted these rituals, which provided sustenance to both individuals and the community at large.

Nuyorican Feminist Performance is a book I wished I had in graduate school. While studying Latinx cultural studies, I was interested in women involved in the Nuyorican Poets Café and subsequent hip-hop theatre movement, but the lack of well-researched accounts made me mistakenly believe that women were not part of this movement. As Patricia Herrera illustrates, I could not have been more wrong. Nuyorican Feminist Performance is a timely intervention and will be of use to scholars in a variety of fields including, but not limited to, Latinx studies, theatre and performance studies, ethnic studies, and gender and sexuality studies.