Yarimar Bonilla

Yarimar Bonilla is Professor in the Department of Africana, Puerto Rican and Latino Studies at Hunter College and the PhD Program in Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She serves as Director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College and is a prominent public intellectual specializing in Caribbean and Latin-X politics. Her academic work bridges anthropology, political science, and ethnic studies with a focus on colonialism, disaster politics, and racial subjectivities in the Caribbean context.

Professor Bonilla's research interests include Caribbean politics, Puerto Rican studies, disaster recovery, colonialism and decolonization, race and racial formation, digital activism, and social movements. Her work examines how disasters like Hurricane Maria reveal underlying political and social traumas in colonial contexts, with particular attention to Puerto Rico's relationship with the United States. She has theorized hashtag usage within social movements and is a principal collaborator in the #PuertoRicoSyllabus project.

Her publications include Non-Sovereign Futures: French Caribbean Politics in the Wake of Disenchantment (2015) and co-edited Aftershocks of Disaster: Puerto Rico Before and After the Storm (2019). Her recent scholarly work explores nonsovereign racecraft, postdisaster futures, and the coloniality of disaster, examining how colonialism, debt, and disaster transform Puerto Rican racial subjectivities. She has also published significant op-eds addressing Puerto Rican resilience, second-class citizenship, and cultural representation.

Among her notable recognitions is being named a 2018-2020 Carnegie Fellow for her research examining the politics of recovery in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. Her work has been featured in major publications including The Washington Post, The Nation, Jacobin, and The New Yorker, and she writes a monthly column in the Puerto Rican newspaper El Nuevo Día titled 'En Vaivén.'

Professor Bonilla is a frequent guest on National Public Radio and news programs such as Democracy Now!, and has participated in numerous public conversations about Puerto Rican politics, Taino movements, and decolonizing solidarity. She has collaborated on digital projects including the La Brega Podcast and has presented her work at institutions including the New York Public Library.