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Join us for a conversation about recovering from climate disaster and building community within the context of colonialism in Puerto Rico.\n\nCelebrate the launch of Mi Mar\xeda: Surviving the Storm, a new book from Voice of Witness and Haymarket Books, with a roundtable conversation about the aftermath of Hurricane Mar\xeda in Puerto Rico.\n\nMi Mar\xeda: Surviving the Storm brings together 17 first-person stories that explore how government neglect and colonialism impact recovery, how communities come together in the wake of disaster, and how precarity and inequity are exacerbated on the frontlines of the climate crisis. Weaving together long-form oral histories and shorter testimonios, the book offers a multivocal history of the storm and its long aftermath as people waited for relief and aid that rarely arrived and communities collectively organized to support one another in recovery.\n\nThis event is cosponsored by Haymarket Books and Voice of Witness. While all of our events are freely available, we ask that those who are able please make a solidarity donation in support of our important educational and publishing work. Donations from this event will support our work with Voice of Witness.\n\nYou can also support by purchasing the book, Mi Mar\xeda: Surviving the Storm, online here: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1746-mi-maria-surviving-the-storm \n\nSpeakers:\n\nDr. Ricia Chansky is a professor in the English department at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagu\u0308ez and the co-editor of Mi Mar\xeda: Surviving the Storm. She is the co-editor of the scholarly journal, a/b: Auto/Biography Studies and the editor of the Routledge Auto/Biography Studies book series. Ricia is also a Research Affiliate at the York University Centre for Research in Latin America and the Caribbean and a Global Fellow at the Brown University Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies. For her work directing the large-scale public humanities project, \u201cMi Mar\xeda: Puerto Rico after the Hurricane,\u201d Ricia won the MLA Innovation in the Humanities Award and the Oral History Association\u2019s Post-Secondary Teaching Award, and was selected as a partner in the Humanities Action Lab. She has been recognized by the Simon Wiesenthal Center/Museum of Tolerance as a Global Human Rights Leader in the Climate Crisis.\n\nZaira Arvelo Alicea is a narrator in Mi Mar\xeda: Surviving the Storm and the Curriculum Specialist for the project. Zaira is a writer, editor, and educator with a focus on English language learners (ELLs) and equity in the continental US and Puerto Rico. She was born in Lares, Puerto Rico, a mountainous town in the archipelago with a tradition of anticolonial insurgency. Zaira and her husband survived Hurricane Mar\xeda by floating on an air mattress for sixteen hours, trapped in their home. Her story highlights several failures in the federal disaster-response system, which led them to remain homeless for well over a year after the hurricane. She currently lives on Puerto Rico\u2019s largest island where she spearheads a small business.\n\nLorel Cubano Santiago is a narrator in Mi Mar\xeda: Surviving the Storm and a community organizer with a background in tourism. She is the founder of the Old San Juan Heritage Foundation and the community arts center Colectivo PerlArte. After Hurricane Mar\xeda, Lorel mobilized mutual aid efforts with her community to feed hundreds of people despite not receiving any aid from the supply ships that docked just minutes away from their neighborhood of La Perla in San Juan.\n\nBrenda Flores Santiago is a researcher, translator, and oral historian. Brenda was a student interviewer for the Mi Mar\xeda project at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayag\xfcez. She is currently a graduate student in the Master of Arts in Translation and Interpreting program at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.\n \nWatch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/4J-e1ITH3ZQ\n\nBuy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org\n\nFollow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks