Ryan Diaz, Author at The Washington Institute

Ryan Diaz is a Puerto Rican writer and poet from Queens, NY, whose work explores the intersections of culture, faith, memory, and identity. With a BA in History from St. John’s University and an MA in Biblical Studies from Reformed Theological Seminary, he draws on both scholarship and lived experience to craft poems and essays that engage with the complexity of diasporic life, spirituality, and the human condition. His writing has appeared in Cathexis Northwest, Transcendentals, Dappled Things, Dew Drop, The Curator, and Ekstasis. He is the author of several poetry collections and a novel: Abuelo, A “Memoir”. He currently resides in Queens, NY, with his wife, Janiece, and his son Damian. He is a lifelong (self-loathing) New York Mets fan.

Articles by Ryan Diaz

Culture • Popular Culture

Saying Grace

Ryan Diaz | < 1 min read

I sat across from my plate, stomach doing summersaults. My abuela’s hard-won labor laid before us, the smell of rice and beans, pernil and pie, all the things she knew we loved— decades of meaning ladled and diced, set on her last good china, all the family together and the years we lost between. I...

Culture • Christianity & Culture

Ethics for Exile

Ryan Diaz | 17 min read

Christianity has always – like any global movement – had different flavors. Those flavors are often thought of as denominations, but denominations themselves mask a range of variation in how we express our Christianity – cultural variation, theological variation, and almost any other “-al variation” out there. At a time when one flavor of Christianity...