{"id":67262,"date":"2025-06-24T11:00:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T15:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/?p=67262"},"modified":"2025-09-13T22:27:27","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T02:27:27","slug":"remembering-janine-pommy-vega","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2025\/06\/remembering-janine-pommy-vega.html","title":{"rendered":"<strong>Remembering Janine Pommy Vega<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">She&#8217;ll get a street named for her in New Jersey, where she was from. <\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Janine was that rare human being whose identity transcended all the categories that defined her \u2014 poet, teacher, novelist, feminist, human-rights activist for prisoners and migrant farmworkers.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Janine Pommy Vega Way naming ceremony\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/s9MfPDq5CHs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/janine-pommy-vega-bdr240.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"240\" height=\"222\" data-attachment-id=\"51326\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/janine-pommy-vega-bdr240\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/janine-pommy-vega-bdr240.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"240,222\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"janine pommy vega (bdr)(240)\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/janine-pommy-vega-bdr240.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/janine-pommy-vega-bdr240.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/janine-pommy-vega-bdr240.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-51326\"\/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>(1942 &#8211; 2010)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p><strong>We knew each other from San Francisco.<\/strong> <strong>The last time I saw her was on the Lower East Side at the Bowery Ball Room in Manhattan, for a reading to celebrate a book of poems by migrant farmworkers,&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Estamos-Aqu\u00ed-Migrant-Farmworkers-Spanish\/dp\/0979097231\/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3ILB8M0CNITWB&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.HlWNJiLTzp4yrlTc0D3jyw.r7QW9GIiRONy6Af9YG2aPODI1F33roc_1jx8Qe-r9IE&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=estamos+aqui+by+janine+pommy+vega&amp;qid=1750775649&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=estamos+aqui+by+janine+pommy+vega%2Cstripbooks%2C74&amp;sr=1-1\">Estamos Aqui<\/a>, <\/em>&nbsp;which she had translated. One of her last messages to me arrived not long after. It <strong>was dated June 19, 2007, but <\/strong>could have been written yesterday<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Hey Jan: I\u2019m back from migrant camps where numbers are intensely decimated due to feds swooping down and trying to fill empty prison with \u201cillegal aliens.\u201d Alien my ass. Whose fingers pick every shred of food on the collective American table? It ain\u2019t a Martian. &nbsp;&#8230; Best wishes to the \u201cstill surviving.\u201d I guess that\u2019s us. Love <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Janine_Pommy_Vega\">Janine<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>She&#8217;ll get a street named for her in New Jersey, where she was from. The last time I saw Janine was on the Lower East Side at the Bowery Ball Room in Manhattan, for a reading to celebrate a book of poems by migrant farmworkers,\u00a0&#8220;Estamos Aqu\u00ed,&#8221;\u00a0which she had translated. One of her last messages to me, dated 6\/19\/2007, arrived not long after. It could have been written yesterday.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":51326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26,18,4,20,23,17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-67262","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"category-literature","9":"category-main","10":"category-media","11":"category-news","12":"category-political-culture","13":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/janine-pommy-vega-bdr240.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-huS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67262"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70083,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67262\/revisions\/70083"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}