Frances Negrón-Muntaner
Frances Negrón-Muntaner (born 1966 in Santurce, Puerto Rico) is a Puerto Rican filmmaker, writer, and scholar. Her work compares colonial experiences in Puerto Rico and the United States and focuses on how race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and politics intersect.
She is an associate professor of English and Comparative Literature and the Director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University in New York City. She writes for outlets such as the Huffington Post, El Diario/La Prensa, and 80 Grados, and since 2008 has served as a Global Expert for the United Nations Rapid Response Media Mechanism. She is one of the best-known Puerto Rican lesbian artists living in the United States.
Negrón-Muntaner grew up in a family of academics; both parents taught at the University of Puerto Rico. She earned a BA in sociology from the University of Puerto Rico (1986), an MA in Visual Anthropology (1991) and an MFA in Film and Video (1994) from Temple University, and a PhD in Comparative Literature from Rutgers University (2000).
Her career includes co-directing AIDS in the Barrio (1989), a documentary about HIV/AIDS in the Puerto Rican community in Philadelphia. In 1994 she released Brincando el charco: Portrait of a Puerto Rican, a film that examines race, gender, and homophobia in migration. It won several awards, including an Audience Award at the 1995 San Juan CinemaFest and recognition at other festivals.
She is a prolific cultural critic and editor. She co-edited Puerto Rican Jam: Rethinking Colonialism and Nationalism (1997) and published Boricua Pop: Puerto Ricans and the Latinization of American Culture (2004), which includes the notable essay Jennifer’s Butt! about Jennifer Lopez. She also edited None of the Above: Puerto Ricans in the Global Era (2007) and Sovereign Acts (2009), and drafted The Radical Statehood Manifesto in 1997.
Beyond her writing, she helped found programs to support Latino filmmakers, including the Miami Light Project’s Filmmakers Workshop, and she was a founding board member and former chair of NALIP (National Association of Latino Independent Producers), helping grow the organization into a major national group.
Negrón-Muntaner has received fellowships from Ford, Truman, Scripps Howard, Rockefeller, and Pew, and in 2005 she was named one of the 100 Most Influential Latinos by Hispanic Business magazine.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 14:13 (CET).