In this visual poem, I'm exploring collage and hybridity with archival records and family photographs. "White Death" explores how one of my ancestors has her race changed on official documents and becomes white at death.
Contributor Notes
Raina J. León, PhD is Black, Afro-Boricua, and from Philadelphia. She believes in collective action and community work, the profound power of holding space for the telling of our stories, and the liberatory practice of humanizing education. A poet and writer, she is the author of Canticle of Idols, Boogeyman Dawn, sombra : (dis)locate and the chapbooks, profeta without refuge and Areyto to Atabey: Essays on the Mother(ing) Self. She has received fellowships and residencies with Cave Canem, The Obsidian Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, among others. She is a member of the SF Writers Grotto and the Carolina African American Writers Collective. She also is a founding editor of The Acentos Review, an online quarterly, international journal devoted to the promotion and publication of Latinx arts, which has published over 900 Latinx voices in its history. She educates current and future agitators/educators as a full professor of education and frequent guest speaker nationwide. She is an emerging visual artist and digital archivist, particularly with StoryJoy, which she co-founded with her mother, Dr. Norma Thomas. She is the lead coordinator for Nomadic Press in Philadelphia and a senior researcher on various grants in education and literature. You can find her on all the platforms @rainaleon.
Photo credit: Matteo Monchiero
