Rate My Professor Edwin Porras

Dr. Edwin E. Porras is the Inaugural Norton Family Assistant Professor of Music at Haverford College. He holds a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of California, Los Angeles (2020), where he specialized in Latin American musical cultures of the African and Asian diasporas. His dissertation, Music-Making Practices of Cubans of Chinese and African Descent: Creating Alternative Ways of Being and Belonging, examines overlooked musical traditions in Cuba that foster alternative senses of belonging. Porras's scholarly interests encompass issues of power at the intersections of class, race, and gender, applied ethnomusicology, and social justice. Before arriving at Haverford in 2022, he served as a curator and content creator for the Smithsonian Institution's education projects and held adjunct positions at the California Institute of the Arts, UCLA, and California State University, Los Angeles. He has conducted extensive fieldwork and archival research in Cuba and the United States.

Porras is currently working on his first monograph and preparing multi-sited research on Asian diaspora music in Peru, Mexico, Panama, and Costa Rica. His key publications include “More Than Divas: The Role of Women in Chinese Cuban Opera” published in American Music (2024); multiple contributions to Smithsonian Folkways' Fiesta Aquí, Fiesta Allá: Music of Puerto Rico (2023), such as “Traigo esta Trulla: Fiestas Navideñas in Puerto Rico and its Diaspora” and “Bomba Landscapes: The Flow of People, Technology, and the Music Industry” (co-authored with Katelen Brown); and forthcoming works like “Chinese Sound Waves on Cuban Shores: Teatro Chino and Danza del León, a Saga of Chinese Migration” (2025). He is an active presenter at international conferences, including the Society for Ethnomusicology and CHIME, and recently delivered the Norton Family Professorship Inaugural Lecture, “Who is the Corneta China: Exploring the Life of an Afro-Chinese Cuban Musical Instrument” (2024). Porras teaches a range of courses on world music, Afro-Latin American music, music and social justice, and ethnomusicology theory and practice.