Fascinating book: http://2leafpress.org/online/our-nuyorican-thing/

Sam Diaz, the author, writes about the Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe and how the term Nuyorican went from being derogatory, defining stateside Puerto Ricans, to complimentary, defining an arts and political movement that grew to encompass all ethnicities and nationalities on the margins: The emergent poetry slams and open mics for the spoken word, the true freedom of speech granted to the youth of the voiceless Puerto Rican communities of New York that eventually grew and spread nationally, then internationally to other voiceless communities and their youth.