George, Maria, and Me: Hurricane Narratives and Poetry as Trauma Healing
My name is Edcel Javier Cintron-Gonzalez, a scholar of Children’s and Young Adult literature from Illinois State University and the author of ‘Irma, Maria, Fiona & Me,’ a deeply personal chapbook of poetry about my experiences with hurricanes in the Caribbean.
Today, I want to share a story not just about hurricanes, but about resilience, healing, and empathy. It’s a story forged from my own lived experience, one that is shared from Puerto Rico from the island of enchantment and the diaspora.
Hurricanes have been a part of my life since I was five years old. I’ve lived through the wrath of Hurricane George in 1998 and the catastrophic Hurricane Maria in 2017. These experiences didn’t just shape my environment; they shaped me as an individual.
In my TED Talk, I will explore how surviving hurricanes alongside my community has built an unbreakable resilience within us. I’ll delve into how poetry became my sanctuary, helping me process trauma and find strength in vulnerability.
But more than my story, this is a call to understand and empathize with others who carry similar hurricane narratives within themselves but are too scared to speak out. It’s about finding common ground in uncommon disasters. I’m eager to share these insights and learnings on the TEDxNormal stage, to ignite a conversation about resilience, healing, and empathy in the face of hurricanes and the narratives they forge as they pass through the lives of thousands, leaving nothing on its path.
About Edcel
Edcel Javier Cintron-Gonzalez is a proud Puerto Rican, scholar, and graduate worker who is pursuing a Ph.D. in English Studies with a focus in Children and Young Adult Literature with a graduate certificate in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Edcel is also the Social Media Specialist for the Department of English at Illinois State University. Edcel’s research interests are how children’s literature opens the space for both adults and children to talk about mental health, and how hurricane narratives can teach us about resiliency, activism, empathy, and healing from trauma using poetry. When he is not working on academic things, he enjoys cooking, playing video games and writing about them as an contributing editor for the website “Gamers with Glasses” and writing his monthly children’s literature review in Spanish for the Palabreadores Newsletter, Palabreando. Edcel is the author of Irma, Maria, Fiona, and Me published in May 2023 by PRESS 254/Spoonfuls and the recipient of the 2023 Outstanding Student Social Media Manager Award by #REDBIRDPROUD social media awards. Edcel’s creative work has been published in Palabreando, Euphemism, Sabanas: Literary Magazine, Ediciones Enserio, El Vicio del Tintero, Abolition Dreaming: A Zine Project, White Noise Zine, and Grad Punk. Edcel’s academic work has been published in the Children’s Literature International Committee, Feral Feminisms, the PRTESOL-GRAM, the Grassroots Writing Research Journal, and the edited collection Children’s and YA Literature and Culture: Broadening Critical Boundaries. Edcel will have forthcoming work to be published in PRESS START, and The Lion and the Unicorn.
