Oriana Elisa Gonzales

Oriana Elisa Gonzales is a born and raised New Yorker with deep ancestral roots in the Caribe, most recently via Cuba and Puerto Rico. She is a Master’s candidate in Liberal Studies at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her research interests include diaspora studies, Afro-latinidad, performance studies, visual culture, oral history, and grassroots community organizing in urban environments. Her thesis reimagines the legacy and interrogates the history of The Puerto Rican Traveling Theater and Pregones Theater, two Latinx community theaters in NYC. It is interested in exploring how, at these theaters, multi-ethnic Latinx have built home and created community through performance. She is, also, very passionate about museums and invested in their role in shaping more inclusive societies. This Summer, she was a Latino Museum Studies Fellow at both the Smithsonian Latino Center and the National African American Museum of History and Culture.