From Bomba to Hip-Hop

John Martin Flores was born in Alexandria, Virginia on September 29, 1943. He received a bachelor's degree in German-language studies at Queens College and a master's degree and Ph.D. in German literature at Yale University. He began teaching German at Stanford University in 1970. While there, he became involved in the movement to develop Chicano studies curriculums in California. He also changed his name to Juan.

In 1975, he returned to New York to work at Centro, where the Latino studies curriculum was being developed for the City University system. Through his work there, he was hired as a professor of black and Puerto Rican studies at Hunter College, where he taught before becoming a professor of social and cultural analysis at New York University in 2006. He was a leading theorist of Latin American studies and a pioneer in the field of "Nuyorican" culture, the arts and language of Puerto Ricans in New York.

He wrote more than a dozen books and edited many collections of essays. His books included From Bomba to Hip-Hop and The Diaspora Strikes Back. He died from complications of Guillain-Barre syndrome on December 2, 2014 at the age of 71.

030