Down These Mean Streets
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Down These Mean Streets
''Down These Mean Streets'' is a memoir by Piri Thomas, a Latino of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent who grew up in Spanish Harlem,Berger a section of Harlem with a large Puerto Rican population. The book follows Piri through the first few decades of his life, lives in poverty, joins and fights with street gangs, faces racism (in both New York City and elsewhere), travels, succumbs to heroin addiction, gets involved in crime, is imprisoned, and is finally released. One of the major themes of ''Down These Mean Streets'' centers on Piri Thomas's identity as a dark-complexioned Puerto Rican. Although he is of Puerto Rican and Cuban heritage, he is seen as black rather than Hispanic or Latino. His own family rejects the African aspect of their Latino-Caribbean ancestry, causing Piri to spend much of his youth and early adult life contemplating his racial and ethnic identity. The book was originally published in 1967. A special Thirtieth Anniversary Edition in 1997 included a new after ...
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Piri Thomas
Piri Thomas (born Juan Pedro Tomas; September 30, 1928 – October 17, 2011) was a Puerto Rican-Cuban writer and poet whose memoir ''Down These Mean Streets'' became a best-seller. Early years Thomas was born to a Puerto Rican mother and Cuban father. His childhood neighborhood in the Spanish Harlem section of New York City was riddled with crime and violence. According to Thomas, children were expected to be gang members at a young age, and Thomas was no exception. Thomas was also exposed to racial discrimination because of his Afro-Latino heritage. Thomas was involved with drugs, gang warfare and crime. While spending seven years in prison for an attempted armed robbery, Thomas reflected on the teachings of his mother and father, and realized that a person is not born a criminal. Consequently, he decided to use his street and prison know-how to reach at-risk youth, and to help them avoid a life of crime.
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Censorship
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions and other controlling bodies. Governments and private organizations may engage in censorship. Other groups or institutions may propose and petition for censorship.https://www.aclu.org/other/what-censorship "What Is Censorship", ACLU When an individual such as an author or other creator engages in censorship of his or her own works or speech, it is referred to as ''self-censorship''. General censorship occurs in a variety of different media, including speech, books, music, films, and other arts, the press, radio, television, and the Internet for a variety of claimed reasons including national security, to control obscenity, pornography, and hate speech, to protect children or other vulnerable groups, to promote or ...
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1967 Non-fiction Books
Events January * January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair. * January 5 ** Spain and Romania sign an agreement in Paris, establishing full consular and commercial relations (not diplomatic ones). ** Charlie Chaplin launches his last film, ''A Countess from Hong Kong'', in the UK. * January 6 – Vietnam War: USMC and ARVN troops launch ''Operation Deckhouse Five'' in the Mekong Delta. * January 8 – Vietnam War: Operation Cedar Falls starts. * January 13 – A military coup occurs in Togo under the leadership of Étienne Eyadema. * January 14 – The Human Be-In takes place in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco; the event sets the stage for the Summer of Love. * January 15 ** Louis Leakey announces the discovery of pre-human fossils in Kenya; he names the species '' Kenyapithecus africanus''. ** American football: The Green Bay Packers defeat the Kansas City Chiefs 35–10 in the First AF ...
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The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid digital subscribers. It also is a producer of popular podcasts such as '' The Daily''. Founded in 1851 by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones, it was initially published by Raymond, Jones & Company. The ''Times'' has won 132 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any newspaper, and has long been regarded as a national " newspaper of record". For print it is ranked 18th in the world by circulation and 3rd in the U.S. The paper is owned by the New York Times Company, which is publicly traded. It has been governed by the Sulzberger family since 1896, through a dual-class share structure after its shares became publicly traded. A. G. Sulzberger, the paper's publisher and the company's chairman, is the fifth generation of the family to head the pa ...
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American Literature In Spanish
American literature written in Spanish in the United States dates back as 1610 when the Spanish explorer Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá published his epic poem ''Historia de Nuevo México'' (History of New Mexico). He was an early chronicler of the conquest of the Americas and a forerunner of Spanish-language literature in the United States given his focus on the American landscape and the customs of the people. However, it was not until the late 20th century that Spanish language literature written by Americans was regularly published in the United States. The rise of Spanish-language Latino literature has been fraught with obstacles related to publication and audience. Latino/a authors have expanded audience expectations by attending to narrative innovation and design and by creating challenging reading situations. Rather than compose their narratives with an actual audience in mind, many Latino/a authors sought to write for a new, ideal audience capable of engaging with even the mo ...
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Spanglish
Spanglish (a portmanteau of the words "Spanish" and "English") is any language variety (such as a contact dialect, hybrid language, pidgin, or creole language) that results from conversationally combining Spanish and English. The term is mostly used in the United States and refers to a blend of the words and grammar of the two languages. More narrowly, Spanglish can specifically mean a variety of Spanish with heavy use of English loanwords. Since different Spanglish arises independently in different regions of varying degrees of bilingualism, it reflects the locally spoken varieties of English and Spanish. Different forms of Spanglish are not necessarily mutually intelligible. The term ''Spanglish'' is first recorded in 1933.Lambert, James. 2018. A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity. ''English World-wide'', 39(1): 31. It corresponds to the Spanish terms Espanglish (from ''Español'' + ''English'', introduced by the Puerto Rican poet Salvador Tió in t ...
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List Of Banned Books
This is an index of lists of banned books, which contain books that have been banned or censored by religious authority or government. By country * Book censorship in Canada * Book censorship in China * List of books banned in India * Book censorship in Iran * List of authors banned in Nazi Germany * List of books banned in New Zealand * Book censorship in the Republic of Ireland * Book censorship in the United States By religious authority * List of authors and works on the ''Index Librorum Prohibitorum'' See also * Book burning * List of book-burning incidents * Nazi book burnings * Burning of books and burying of scholars * '' Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc'd Printing, to the Parlament of England'' * ''Index Librorum Prohibitorum'' * List of most commonly challenged books in the United States This list of the most commonly challenged books in the United States refers to books sought to be removed or otherwise restricted from public ...
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Long Island
Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the List of islands by population, 18th-most populous in the world. The island begins at New York Harbor approximately east of Manhattan Island and extends eastward about into the Atlantic Ocean and 23 miles wide at its most distant points. The island comprises four List of counties in New York, counties: Kings and Queens counties (the New York City Borough (New York City), boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, respectively) and Nassau County, New York, Nassau County share the western third of the island, while Suffolk County, New York, Suffolk County occupies the eastern two thirds of the island. More than half of New York City's residents (58.4%) lived on Long Island as of 2020, in Brooklyn and in Queens. Culturally, many people in t ...
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New York City, New York
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the List of United States cities by population density, most densely populated major city in the United States, and is more than twice as populous as second-place Los Angeles. New York City lies at the southern tip of New York (state), New York State, and constitutes the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban area, urban landmass. With over 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York is one of the world's most populous Megacity, megacities, and over 58 million people live within of the city. New York City is a global city, global Culture of New ...
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Queens
Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long Island to its west, and Nassau County to its east. Queens also shares water borders with the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island (via the Rockaways). With a population of 2,405,464 as of the 2020 census, Queens is the second most populous county in the State of New York, behind Kings County (Brooklyn), and is therefore also the second most populous of the five New York City boroughs. If Queens became a city, it would rank as the fifth most-populous in the U.S. after New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston. Approximately 47% of the residents of Queens are foreign-born. Queens is the most linguistically diverse place on Earth and is one of the most ethnically diverse counties in the United States. Queens was est ...
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Darien, Connecticut
Darien ( ) is a coastal town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. With a population of 21,499 and a land area of just under 13 square miles, it is the smallest town on Connecticut's Gold Coast. It has the youngest population of any non-college town in Connecticut, a high rate of marriage, and high number of average children per household. Darien is also one of the wealthiest communities in the U.S. Situated on Long Island Sound between the cities of Stamford and Norwalk, the town has relatively few office buildings. Many residents commute to Manhattan, with two Metro-North railroad stations - Noroton Heights and Darien - linking the town to Grand Central Terminal. For recreation, the town boasts eleven parks, two public beaches, the private Tokeneke beach club, three country clubs including the first organized golf club in Connecticut, a riding & racquet club, the public Darien Boat Club, and Noroton Yacht Club. History According to early records, the first c ...
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