Luis Cotto: 

“Aqui to be called negrito means to be called LOVE” ~ Pedro Pietri

In Pedro Pietri’s seminal poem Puerto Rican Obituary, he traces the lives of five Puerto Rican immigrants—Juan, Miguel, Milagros, Olga, and Manuel—struggling to find their footing in New York City. Through his vivid portrayal, Pietri critiques the dehumanizing forces of capitalism that distort the immigrants’ experiences in the U.S., as well as their memories and connections to Puerto Rico. The characters labor under the weight of societal expectations, racial prejudice, and economic hardship, which ultimately separates them from their dreams of success. His work is a powerful reflection of the Nuyorican experience: a diasporic identity born out of the tension between a mythologized homeland and the harsh realities of life in urban America.

With this collection of images, I seek to build a visual conversation with Pietri’s themes, translating the struggles of his characters into a contemporary context. These photographs capture my circle of friends, family, and strangers, who similarly navigate the pressures and constraints of capitalism, systemic inequities, and the search for cultural identity in modern-day urban environments. Like the figures in Puerto Rican Obituary, the people in my photographs embody a duality—a deep-rooted connection to their heritage alongside the weight of displacement and adaptation.

The title of this collection, taken directly from the closing lines of Pietri’s poem, is a tribute to the melanin-rich, resilient subjects who, like Juan, Miguel, Milagros, Olga, and Manuel, navigate spaces not always designed for them. It serves as a reminder that their stories, too, are woven into the larger tapestry of migration, labor, and resistance. Through these images, I want to continue the conversation started by Pietri and the Nuyorican poets, exploring how contemporary life mirrors, redefines, and complicates the immigrant experience in today’s world.

In this collection, light and shadow play a crucial role, emphasizing the duality of hope and hardship, visibility and invisibility, that permeates immigrant narratives. These images are an invitation to look closer at the lives and landscapes that often go unnoticed, to celebrate the ordinary as extraordinary, and to recognize the ongoing struggle for dignity and self-determination.