Jesús Abraham "Tato" Laviera (May 9, 1950 – November 1, 2013) was a Latino poet and playwright in the United States. Born Jesús Laviera Sanches, in Santurce, Puerto Rico, he moved to New York City at the age of ten, with his family, to reside in the Lower East Side. Throughout his life he was involved in various human rights organizations, but was best known as a renowned Nuyorican poet. An obituary for NBC Latino describes him as "one of the greatest representatives of the Nuyorican movement."
Early years and education
Laviera was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico and moved to the Lower East Side of New York City in 1960 with his mother and siblings at the age of nine. He attended Catholic school in the United States where is teachers urged him to change his name to Abraham because they felt that Jesús was unfit for someone of Latino descent who did not understand English. As a result, he chose to go by the name "Tato", a nickname given by his brother. After graduating high school in 1968, he studied at Cornell University and later at Brooklyn College. However, he never received a degree from either school. Instead, he committed the majority of his time to social and community work. Laviera served as the director of University of the Streets, a nonprofit organization focused on providing educational opportunities for underprivileged individuals. Additionally, he was a director of the Hispanic Drama Workshop, and a creative writing professor at Rutgers University.
While still in Puerto Rico, his mother studied under Juan Boria, an acclaimed poet and performer who was inspired by Afro-Caribbean culture. This early exposure introduced him to the world of Puerto Rican poetry that he later infiltrated. Tato initially began writing as a means of reestablishing the name that was taken from him earlier in his life.
Personal life
Laviera had a daughter, Ruth Ella, and a son, Che Malik, who died in 2005. Tato suffered from diabetes, which caused a complications and interruptions in his work. In 2004, he was deemed legally blind due to complications with diabetes. He then revisited his passion for community work, working with the American Association for Diabetes, where his main initiative was promoting awareness representing Latinos who suffered from the disease. He even founded the Jesús A. Laviera One-Day with Diabetes Project which allowed him to incorporate his adoration for poetry. He hosted events during which poets could speak about how diabetes has affected their lives and offer support to the Hispanic community. Following some years of financial and health problems, Laviera fell into a diabetic coma. Shortly after he died, on November 1, 2013 at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.
Career
Laviera began writing poems and jingles at a very young age. He claims this lead him to discover the "wealth of characters and attitudes" that poetry contains. Laviera's poetry, which is written sometimes in Spanish, sometimes in English, more often in Spanglish, addresses language, cultural identity, race, and memory, particularly as it affects the transculturated lives of Puerto Ricans in the United States. Laviera uses the sublets of each language to contribute to his rich symbolism and metaphor that are commonplace in his poetry. His mastery of both languages sets him apart from many Latino writers of his time. Tato claims that the most important aspect of his poems is the title, explaining that "the words of the title are the ultimate essence." Laviera was keen on performing his works of poetry in front of audiences in a musical manner. Live recitation of poetry is an important aspect of the Nuyorican movement as it better portrays the spirit of the poems. Scholar William Luis describes Laviera's work as follows: "His poetry is full of the music of bomba and plena, and of rap and preaching. However, it is also socially minded and historical in content. Indeed, his poems are a conglomeration of voices, songs, dialects, and cultures producing a unique synthesis which is moving, instructive, and aesthetically appealing". Laviera prides himself in giving a voice to all of the people, cultures, and nations he represents through his poetry. Since he believes he belongs equally to two nations, the United States and Puerto Rico, he opted to focus on the positives of biculturalism, rather than adverse aspects like some of his counterparts. Nicolás Kanellos's Hispanic Literature of the United States: A Comprehensive Reference describes him as "the inheritor of the Spanish oral tradition, with all of its classical formulas, and the African oral tradition, with its wedding to music and spirituality."