Latino author beats the odds

It wasn't until John Peter Thomas visited Puerto Rico that he realized his pen name, Piri, was the Puerto Rican equivalent of "Sue." But learning his name had female roots only encouraged Thomas to embrace his Hispanic heritage. Few people have articulated their love of life through such serendipitous self-discovery as vividly as Piri Thomas, the keynote speaker of "Festival Latino." The self-described "free-flow master" and poet has written several books and spoke to a small crowd at the Veranda Friday night. Despite a tumultuous early adulthood -- seven years of which were spent in New York's Sing Sing prison -- Thomas has been able to transform personal adversity into the message of hope found in his unique and lyrical voice whose "words can be bullets or butterflies." His critically acclaimed book, Down These Mean Streets, recounts an adolescent life of crime that culminated in a shootout with police that resulted in his lock-up. Once in prison, Thomas turned to writing as a way to reform himself. "I wasn't going to serve time, time was going to serve me and I wasn't going to eradicate my mind," said Thomas. "I was going to educate it." The success of his reform can be measured by the fact that he celebrates his experiences outside of prison rather than using prison as the defining period of his life. "The cruelest prison of all is the prison of the mind," said Thomas. "I've seen the word rehabilitation taken out of the rules and the word revenge used [to replace it]." In a speech punctuated with frequent interjections of emotion -- including ending each poem with the Spanish word "Punto!" or "period" -- the 70-year-old poet expressed his love of women, his love for his wife and the love of his family, which garnered laughter and applause from an enthusiastic audience. Emphasizing the importance of love in his life, Thomas made spirited realizations about life in Spanish Harlem, saying "the streets have got love like any place else.? the streets got life like long tender suns." The Penn Latino Association was pleased with their choice of keynote speaker and many of those in attendance said they were inspired. "He's an inspiration who ignores academia to talk in the language of the people," said College junior Milady Nazir, president of the student group El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan. "It's refreshing to hear when other people like to hide behind a facade." Thomas also spoke about his racial identity -- being a dark-skinned child in a light-skinned family -- and recounted the wisdom of his mother. "Mami said all colors were meant to be beautiful." "He has a really long sense of history, anywhere from civil rights to the Latino movement," said College senior Tania Castro, co-chairperson of the festival. "He provides a voice to what it is like to be a Latina in the U.S."