The Rematriating Borikén Podcast just celebrated its first birthday!!! Thank you to all who have tuned in, supported this endeavor with encouragement and wonderful feedback, and to those who have contributed their voices (those already published and those to be shared in future episodes.)
This podcast has been an experiment in exploring a different venue for sharing more intimate rematriation reflections. I stopped promoting the episodes along the way, as I got more comfortable with just flowing and seeing how it would unfold organically. Now in a groove and ready to post more voices, I will promote these more.
To commemorate this first anniversary, the 23rd episode is a video compilation of different rematriation voices beginning with our dear freedom fighter, beloved ancestor, Dylcia Pagán. After this sampler of different voices, I will move into sharing more full episodes of others on the rematriation journey via the interviews I have recorded for the Portraits from the Trench series and other conversations recorded for the Podcast. I am posting the video below. You can also tune in on the Rematriating Borikén channel on YouTube and also here on this site.
As will always be the case, each person speaks in the language of their preference, English, Spanish or Spanglish. (No subtitles by the way). We appreciate your patience and interest in flowing with it and witnessing others flow with their most free expression. The Rematriation Reflections on this video include:
-Dylcia Pagán with a reflection on the collective decision she and her comrades made to move to Puerto Rico following their release in 1999.
-Melissa Rosario with a reflection on returning her body home and rematriation as restoring matrilineal wisdom.
-Myrna Cabán shares a reflection on the superficial reasons some people arrive here to the archipelago and what it means to be responsible and connected on our journeys.
-Susimar Gonzalez Martínez speaks to her views on the diaspora being folks who left and never returned and what it was for her to leave for several years and then return again.
-Maximilián Adrián shares his experience leaving to New York for three years following Hurricane María and in a twist of the usual narrative, speaks to how hard one struggles in New York and how his ancestors brought him back. This is a necessary perspective to share because the normalized narrative is that we struggle in the archipelago and leave to the states for a better life.
-Janía Martínez speaks to rematriation being a choice, a conscious, deliberate practice, from her perspective as having moved from Boston to the archipelago with her family when she was just eleven years old.
-Matthew Soto speaks to his connection to hurricanes and shares his reflection on the womb and its role in our various life transformations.
-Yarí Taína speaks to the term rematriation, and the rhythm of the archipelago as defined by the waters that surround it and what is means to return and attune to this rhythm.
-Javier Smith Torres speaks to rematriation as a political practice and one that has huge responsibility to the archipelago and its people.
Again, thanks for tuning in and for following Rematriating Borikén over the years. Stay tuned each new and full moon for new episodes.
Visit Podcast page for more episodes…
Thank you for tuning in!
In light, Yasmín
Rematriating Borikén 
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