Make sure to check out Public Humanities Day, too!
Just Added: New, Limited-Space Historical Tour in Vieques, Puerto Rico
Vieques is an island of the Puerto Rican archipelago that in recent years has evolved into a popular tourist destination. Visitors from the U.S. are attracted by the beautiful beaches and scenic views—landscapes saturated with silenced and distorted histories that most will bypass or leave without knowing. Histories that, if heard, detail the workings of colonialism and the unruliness bred through generations to survive it. However, sometimes the histories overflow and their reach exceeds the island’s shores. Indeed, twenty-five years ago people across the world encountered Vieques through narratives about the U.S. Navy occupation of the island and the intense civil disobedience campaign that ended over sixty years of bombings. Since then, militarized colonialism has evolved into settler colonialism. And today, discussions at state level open up the possibility of remilitarization. For which La Lucha Viequense continua.
This tour will take participants to sites of memory in Vieques relevant to the tracing of La Lucha Viequense ("The Viequense Struggle") against the U.S. Navy during the 1940s to 2003. Guided by AHV Community Historians, participants will delve into the history of the U.S. military occupation, its impact on the Viequense community, and the labor, unruliness and sacrifices that led to its dismantling. The tour sheds light on the historical workings of an evolving colonial regime that manufactures vulnerability while encountering constant resistance from the Viequense community. As such, the historical exploration can provide insight for present conversations about militarization, colonialism and the intimate relationship between the two.
Information about ENTRAMANDO
The Historical Tours Program of the Archivo Histórico de Vieques (AHV) is named ENTRAMANDO—a play of words meant to invoke the starting of a conversation (i.e., entramar) and the weaving together of narrative threads (i.e., en-tramar) in the crafting of a rich design that is also a sturdy foundation (i.e., entramado). The Program, offering guided walks through relevant sites of memory with AHV Community Historians, educates about the history of Vieques. Moreover, through immersive, embodied and community-guided historical exploration, tour participants partake in the community’s reclaiming of their past, Island and narrative voice. Indeed, the tours hold space for weaving histories in ways that allow for the foregrounding of the live and lived history that’s embedded in the local landscape. The purpose: to continue prompting collective learning opportunities and our community’s narrative sovereignty.
Tour Information
Date: Sunday November 23, 2025
Estimated Time: 10-2pm
Meeting Place: Isabel II in Vieques, Puerto Rico
Cost: $65.00
The tour includes lunch and transportation between tour stops.
Travel Information: Vieques is accessible via airplane (including from the San Juan Isla Grande Airport, located 1.2 km from the Puerto Rico Convention Center) or ferry (from Ceiba). Participants must sort out their own travel arrangements to and from Vieques. It is highly recommended that participants book their ferry or airplane ticket in advance to ensure availability.
Accessibility Information: The tour involves walking on uneven and unpaved terrain and is not wheelchair accessible. If you have limited mobility or require accommodations, please contact the Program Coordinator and the Archivo Histórico de Vieques in advance so we can discuss options.
Contact Information: Ilandra Guadalupe Maldonado, Program Coordinator, iogm@ahvpr.org, or info@ahvpr.org
Archivo Histórico de Vieques is a non-profit community organization that responds to the desire of the Viequense community to remember and narrate its past—on its own terms and as a means to imagine Viequense futures. Learn more on their website.
Guided Museum Exhibit Tour, "Caribbean-Yet-To-Come"
Caribe por venir [Caribbean-Yet-To-Come] is the result of curatorial research that explores the multiple relationships between performance, territory, and materiality in contemporary Caribbean art since 2017. It is also the title of this exhibition, which brings together photographs and videos of performances accompanied by drawings, sculptures, objects, texts, and songs. These works trace a diversity of bodily practices carried out across coastal territories located in Puerto Rico, Cuba, Captiva Island (USA), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Newfoundland and Labrador (Canada), Chile, and the United Kingdom by nineteen artists from the Caribbean and its diasporas in the Americas and Europe. The exhibition focuses on how Puerto Rican and Caribbean artists, each from their own intersectionalities, establish relations with the oceanic, telluric, atmospheric, and cosmological agencies that constitute the Caribbean archipelago. The exhibition does not invite the public to a mere contemplation of a tropical landscape waiting to be exploited as an inert natural resource. Instead, Caribe por venir [Caribbean-Yet-To-Come] rehearses notions of territory that proposes approaching the archipelago as an entity full of agency, desire, and generative will. Open to dialogue with those who inhabit and traverse it. As part of the curatorial project, the Documentation Center located on the first level of the museum provides access to the virtual archive the Foro Permanente de Performance. From 2013 to the present, the Permanent Performance Forum has been part of the driving force behind performance art documentation, programming, and developing public research on performance practice in Puerto Rico in pedagogical spaces attentive to the knowledge generated by the practices of the Caribbean body.
Participating Artists: Eduardo Alegría, Marta Aponte Alsina, Yarimir Cabán Reyes, Javier Cardona Otero, Claudia Claremi, Sofía Gallisá Muriente, Teresa Hernández, Nadia Huggins, James Jordan Johnson, Carlos Martiel, Johan Mijail, Las Nietas de Nonó, Javier Orfon, nibia pastrana santiago, Pó Rodil, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, Merián Soto, Yiyo Tirado y Luis Vasquez La Roche.
Please note: participants are required to obtain their own transportation for this event.
Date: Friday, November 21
Time: 2:00-3:30 pm
Location: Meet at the Puerto Rico Museum of Contemporary Art [1220 Ave. Ponce de León Esq. R.H. Todd Pda 18, San Juan, 00907, Puerto Rico]
Ticket Cost: $14 each; pay at the museum
Registration: Required; click the button below!
Walking Workshops of Old San Juan
SOLD OUT!
Tours run daily November 17–22, which includes the days between the NWSA and ASA conferences. Whether you’re staying on, arriving early, or planning to be in San Juan only on the conference dates, we’ve got you covered.
Join us for special walking workshops of Old San Juan—or "(De)tours"—offered by Memoria (De)colonial in partnership with the ASA. These (de)tours are pedagogical (re)routes that unmask and demystify heritage sites through a nuanced (de)colonial, (anti)racist, and (dia)logical perspective that promotes critical views of history, identity, and the tourism industry. Instead of focusing solely on the political aspects of colonialism in Puerto Rico, (de)tours navigate and interrupt the coloniality of the city and its hierarchies of race, class, gender, sexuality, spirituality, and citizenship, that emanate from colonial legacies of Eurocentrism. (de)tours challenge popular (meta)narratives and romanticized (counter)narratives to appreciate and respect the opacity and complexity of the Caribbean and its peoples.
Please note that all (de)tours take place in Old San Juan, which features hilly and uneven terrain and, as such, they are unfortunately not wheelchair accessible. For guests with mobility concerns or walking challenges, we recommend the “Extramuros” (de)tour, which offers the most contained route, minimal hills, and the highest level of accessibility within our current offerings.
(De)tours at the 2025 Annual Meeting (All tickets are sold out)
- San Juan (Anti)colonial: Imperialism and resistance in the world’s oldest colony (Mon, Nov 17, 2pm; Weds, Nov 19, 1pm; Thurs, Nov 20, 10am; Sat, Nov 22, 10am)
Forget the postcard version of Old San Juan. This (de)tour confronts how the city’s carefully curated colonial heritage obscures its political present. You’ll traverse the walled city to unpack the Spanish-American War, U.S. invasion and insular cases, Americanization through education, nationalist uprisings, the founding of the Commonwealth, and recent struggles — including the fiscal crisis and the protests that ousted Governor Rosselló in 2019. Key questions include: How does colonialism shape everyday life in Puerto Rico today? Where do resistance and community power show up in these spaces? - San Juan Abolicionista: “El Majesty” (1859), urban slavery, and freedom in Old San Juan (Tues, Nov 18, 10am; Weds, Nov 19, 2pm; Thurs, Nov 20, 2pm; Fri, Nov 21, 10am)
Go beyond the pastel façades of Old San Juan to uncover the often-erased histories of Black communities who made San Juan. This route explores 19th-century urban slavery and the experiences of free Black communities at the margins of the walled city. Tracing the story of the Brick-Barca Majesty, the last known slave ship to reach Puerto Rico in 1859, you’ll learn how the 456 Congolese survivors, while “freed,” were forced into exploitative labor regimes — a legacy that echoes in the racial violence of global capitalism today. Key questions include: What does abolition mean beyond legal emancipation? How did Black Sanjuaneros resist and reimagine freedom? - San Juan (Extra)muros: Cartographies of gender and (dis)placement along the walls of the city (Weds, Nov 19, 9:30am; Fri, Nov 21, 10am; Fri, Nov 21, 2pm)
Step outside the city’s walls — both literally and historically. This (de)tour reveals how San Juan’s massive fortifications didn’t just keep invaders out; they also segregated and excluded the “undesirable.” You’ll visit sites that speak to the city’s erased stories of excluded communities and working-class Black women in the neighborhood of Ballajá — home to laundresses, seamstresses, and cooks who defied the imperial gaze. Key questions include: How does displacement operate as a tool of colonial rule? What can the displaced communities beyond the walls teach us about survival and erasure? - San Juan (De)colonial: Interrogating monuments, heritage, and nation-building myths in the colonial city (Weds, Nov 19, 10am; Thurs, Nov 20, 10am; Sat, Nov 22, 2pm)
Join us on a walking (de)tour to explore how the city (re)members 500 years of displacement, from colonial conquest to military expropriations, to the rise of short-term rentals (Airbnb) and lucrative tax breaks. This (de)tour provides a different look at Old San Juan, one where colonial cobblestones and balconies give way to slaveholding Inquisitors, Americanization, violent repression of pro-independence movements, an ousted Governor, a hyper extractive tourism industry, and crypto investors looking for a tropi(fis)cal paradise. On this (de)tour, you will learn about San Juan’s colonial history, from its Spanish settlers to the US Empire, and explore how colonial legacies continue to shape the urban landscape and society of Puerto Rico.
Policies and Information
- Tours run for approximately 2 hours.
- Please arrive 5-10 minutes early for your (de)tour. The starting location for your (de)tour will be included with your email confirmation after you complete your purchase.
- Tickets are non-refundable and may only be used for the specific (de)tour purchased.
- Tickets may be transferred to another individual. ASA and Memoria (De)colonial will not handle any transfers or exchange of money, so simply tell the new ticket holder to give the original purchaser’s name to the guide when arriving at the (de)tour meeting place.
- (De)tours are held rain or shine. In the event of extreme weather or other unforeseen circumstances, (de)tours may be cancelled by Memorial (De)colonial. Please provide your email and phone number so you can be contacted in the unlikely event of cancellation.
- Remember to wear comfortable walking shoes. Old San Juan is hilly and there is uneven terrain. Memorial (De)colonial and the ASA are not responsible for any personal injuries or accidents experienced on the tours.
- By participating in this (de)tour, you acknowledge and accept that Memorial (De)colonial and ASA shall not be held responsible or liable for any loss, damage, injury, or accident that may occur during the tour, including but not limited to slips, falls, or other mishaps on uneven terrain or due to weather conditions. All participants assume full responsibility for their own safety and well-being throughout the duration of the (de)tour.
About Memoria (De)colonial
Memoria (De)colonial is an educational project that critically examines the colonial legacies embedded in Puerto Rico’s cultural heritage. Founded in 2020 by Dr. Rafael V. Capò García, Memoria (De)colonial works to disrupt the coloniality of historical memory through public humanities initiatives by developing critical participatory projects that transform the way history is told, remembered, and experienced—embodying history, rooting memory in place, and democratizing the production of public knowledge.