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Gabriel Torres Colón

Grant Type

Engaged Research Grant

Institutional Affiliation

Vanderbilt U.

Grant number

Gr. ERG-23

Approve Date

February 4, 2022

Project Title

Torres Colón, Gabriel (Vanderbilt U.) "Seeds for Resisting and Flourishing in the Mangroves: Racial Experience, Sustainability, and Community Empowerment in Piñones, Puerto Rico"

This research project broadly explores how Afro-Puerto Ricans in Pi’ones, Lo’za resist structural racism, struggle for social equality, and pursue a more prosperous future. In collaboration with the Corporaci’n Pi’ones se Integra (COPI), a a community-based non-profit, we will employ ethnographic methods to understand how Afro-Puerto Ricans experience race, practice environmental conversation of their ancestral mangrove forest, and seek to effect change in governmental politics. Ultimately, we aim to influence political ideologies and construct public policy that will allow Afro-Puerto Ricans to not only resist structural racism, but to flourish as equal members of society.