Sandra María Esteves

Bluestown Mockingbird Mambo was published in 1990 and remains her most widely distributed collection. As the title suggests, she draws on various musical genres that have influenced and defined her identity such as blues and jazz coming from the African-American community alongside mambo, salsa, bomba, and plena from the Latino community to influence her writing here. It is also where she begins to expand beyond struggles within the Latino community and develops multicultural voices beyond her own to further elaborate on the oppressions that envelop numerous communities of women and the need for alliance formation to create widespread change.

Her second poetry collection, Tropical Rains: A Bilingual Downpour, was published in 1984 but did not see the wide success of Yerba Buena, potentially due to the fact that it was self-published. It is where Esteves further expounds upon her identity as an Afro-Caribbean alongside that of a Nuyorican, as well as where she begins exploring the complexities of motherhood and the maternal female figure.

Her first poetry collection Yerba Buena: Dibujos y poemas was published in 1980 and holds the accolade of being one of the first poetry books published by a Latina in the United States. While most known for the poetry within, it also contains art she created to pair with the written words. One of the most well-known poems from the collection, “A la Mujer Borrinquena,” details the life of the character Maria Cristina who takes on the role of the Puerto Rican woman as she is idealized in one sense—dedicated to supporting her family—while maintaining awareness of her role and how despite seemingly falling in line with what is expected of her, her actions serve as a mode of protection of her family but even more so her culture. This would be challenged by Luz Maria Umpierre, who wrote “In Response” and criticized the construction of Maria Cristina's, and Esteves’, feminism by utilizing the original poem's format to construct a new female character that aggressively opposes traditional sex roles. Esteves would respond once again in her third collection, Bluestown Mockingbird Mambo, with the poem “So Your Name Isn't Maria Cristina” and uses her words to recognize the value in Umpierre's words but reaffirms the autonomy that can be found within Maria Cristina's actions as well, validating the diverse ways to work against patriarchal oppression.

Esteves received her first poetry fellowship in 1980 from New York State CAPS. In 2010, she received a prestigious NEA Master Artist Award from Pregones Theater.

She enrolled at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn to pursue graphic arts, but dropped out after the first year; she later returned to complete her degree in 1978. While she did find lack of support during her initial time at Pratt, one Japanese professor who specialized in sculpture, Toshio Odate, encouraged her to look at how words could contribute to her work as a visual artist. This, along with the inspiration she found in attending the poetry readings at the National Black Theater of Harlem she would find herself becoming a founding member of, all helped her to begin to utilizing poetry as a medium to grapple with her identity crisis.

Esteves joined El Grupo, an artistic collective who performed with the intention of leading social change; this would serve as the foundation and core for the Nuyorican movement itself. As a performing poet, she read in the Nuyorican Poets Café during its first launch in 1974 under Miguel Algarín and Miguel Piñero as well as its reopening in 1988. She was also one of two featured poets on El Grupo's LP Canciones y poesía de la lucha de los pueblos latinoamericanos/ Songs and Poetry of the Latin American Struggle, released in 1974, alongside Jesús Papoleto Meléndez. Her reach was not exclusive to Loisaida, though, as she also spent several years as the executive director and producer of the African Caribbean Poetry Theater from 1983 until 1988, as well as performing with Taller Boricua, which helped cultivate a distinction within her poetry compared with her male Nuyorican counterparts. Since then she has continued her involvement in numerous community organization projects and performing workshops dedicated to youth outreach via the arts and writing, partnering with associations throughout New York City such as, but not exclusive to, the New York State Poets in the Schools Program (1981-1989), the Caribbean Cultural Center and African Diaspora Institute, the New Rican Village Cultural Center, the Cultural Council Foundation of the Artistic Project of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, the Teachers and Writers Collaborative, and the Bronx Music Heritage Center.

Sandra María Esteves (born May 10, 1948) is a Latina poet and graphic artist. She was born and raised in the Bronx, New York, and is one of the founders of the Nuyorican poetry movement. She has published collections of poetry and has conducted literary programs at New York City Board of Education, the Caribbean Cultural Center, and El Museo del Barrio. Esteves has served as the executive director of the African Caribbean Poetry Theater. She is the author of Bluestown Mockinbird Mambo (Arte Publico Press, 1990) and Yerba Buena (Greenfield Review, 1980). She lives in the Bronx.