CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Poet Richard Blanco – the fifth and youngest inaugural poet and the first Latino, immigrant and gay person to serve in that role – will visit the University of Illinois for a reading and book signing April 7.
Blanco read his poem “One Today” at President Obama’s second inauguration. He was born in Spain to Cuban-exiled parents and raised in Miami, and one of the themes of Blanco’s work is a search for identity. He describes himself on his website as “the Cuban Blanco or the American Blanco, the homebody or the world traveler, the scared boy or the openly gay man, the engineer or the inaugural poet.”
His visit is part of the spring events of the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities. Space and place are unofficial themes for the program’s spring speaker series, making Blanco’s writings on home and belonging a good fit, said Nancy Castro, the associate director of the IPRH.
Blanco’s story is the story of many Latino students at the U. of I. who grew up in the U.S. but whose parents are immigrants and whose home lives reflect a strong influence of Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico or Puerto Rico, said Gioconda Guerra Perez, the director of La Casa Cultural Latina.
“They will understand his experience,” Guerra Perez said.
Students will get to meet Blanco at a lunch at La Casa Cultural Latina during his visit. The lunch is part of the IPRH’s Inside Scoop series of conversations between undergraduate students and distinguished scholars in the humanities.
Guerra Perez said Latino students can learn from Blanco’s experience, and his struggles with his identity can help them understand how to navigate that process themselves.
“We work with a lot of students who have multiple identities,” she said. “You have to value them, value that you speak another language. Those are assets. Those are not deficiencies.”
Guerra Perez said Blanco’s part in President Obama’s inauguration is particularly important to Latinos “because we had a presence at that historic moment. Somebody could voice part of what we are and how complex we are.”
Blanco is also a civil engineer. “Since the campus is so strong in engineering, we thought him a particularly interesting choice, to bring a poet-engineer to campus,” Castro said. Blanco will meet with engineering faculty members and students, organized by Raymond Price, co-director of the Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education, as well as meeting with faculty members in the colleges of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Fine and Applied Arts during his visit.
Blanco’s visit comes during National Poetry Month, as well as Latino/Latina Month on the U. of I. campus. The reading and book signing is at 7:30 p.m. April 7 in the ballroom at the Alice Campbell Alumni Center, 601 S. Lincoln Ave., Urbana. It is free and open to the public.
The event is co-sponsored by the Chancellor’s Inclusive Illinois lecture series, the College of Engineering and the Creative Writing Program’s Carr Reading Series.
To reach Nancy Castro, call 217-244-7913; email ncastro@illinois.edu. Information about Richard Blanco’s visit is online.
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