In J. L. Torres's second story collection Migrations, the inaugural
winner of the Tomás Rivera Book Prize, a "sucio" goes to an underground
clinic for therapy to end his machista ways and is accidentally
transitioned. Ex-gangbangers gone straight deal with a troubled, gifted
son drawn to the gangsta lifestyle promoted by an emerging music called
hip-hop. Dead and stuck "between somewhere and nowhere," Roberto
Clemente, the great Puerto Rican baseball icon, soon confronts the
reason for his predicament. These stories take us inside the lives of
self-exiles, unhomed and unhinged people, estranged from loved ones,
family, culture, and collective history. Despite the effects of
colonization of the body and mind, Puerto Ricans have survived beyond
geography and form an integral part of the American mosaic.