Silverio Pérez Figueroa (born July 18, 1948 in

Guaynabo, Puerto Rico Guaynabo (, ) is a Guaynabo barrio-pueblo, city and Municipalities of Puerto Rico, municipality on the northeastern coastal plain of Puerto Rico. Located west of the capital San Juan, Puerto Rico, San Juan, east of Bayamón, Puerto Rico, Bayam� ...

) is a Puerto Rican musician, writer, comedian, entrepreneur and broadcasting media host.

Early life

Pérez is the oldest of the eleven children of Silverio Pérez Rosado (1914–2024) and Victorina Figueroa Amador (1925–2022). The Pérez are of

Sephardi Jewish Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendant ...

Anusim Anusim (, ; singular male, anús, ; singular female, anusá, , meaning "coerced") is a legal category of Jews in '' halakha'' (Jewish law) who were forced to abandon Judaism against their will, typically while forcibly converted to another re ...

origin. While Pérez was a teenager he became involved in various church singing groups and in the Puerto Rican production of

Up with People Up with People (UWP) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Up with People stages song and dance performances promoting themes such as multiculturalism, racial equality, and positive thinking. Critics, including some former Up with P ...

. He later formed a duo, Silverio y Roxana, that specialized in Puerto Rican music, and as a result, was a guest -and later hosted- a typical Puerto Rican music television program, ''"Borinquen Canta"'', along with news broadcaster Guillermo José Torres. He later studied Chemical Engineering at the

University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez The University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus (UPRM) or Recinto Universitario de Mayagüez (RUM) in Spanish (also referred to as Colegio and CAAM in allusion to its former name), is a Public university, public land-grant university in Mayagüez ...

, but remained active as a part-time singer while completing his studies. He then realized that Engineering, while a lucrative career, did not fulfill his vocation as a singer. During his period as a student of the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, Perez met and befriended such legendary figures as politician Jose Enrique Arraras, basketball star Fufi Santori and sportscaster Elliott Castro. (in Spanish)

Career

Pérez formally started his career with the singing group Haciendo Punto en Otro Son with four debut concerts at a night club called "La Tea" in San Juan (October 30 – November 2, 1975). This band, whose original members included

Irvin García Irvin is a male given name of Indo-European languages, Indo-European origin. In Old Irish, Old Gaelic, the meaning of the name is "freshwater" or "friend of the sea." It can also be used as a variant of Ervin (given name), Ervin, the Eastern Europ ...

, Jossy Latorre, Nano Cabrera and Tony Croatto, toured all of Puerto Rico and some other countries, recording various albums and 8-tracks. The group faced

blacklisting Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority compiling a blacklist of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list; if people are on a blacklist, then they are considere ...

in some Puerto Rican towns due to the political nature of some of its songs, and experienced numerous personnel changes over time (most notably Croatto's, who as a non-native Puerto Rican felt uncomfortable by the situation). Haciendo Punto would "break up" twice during the 1980s, to be reformed in the late 1990s. After the group went into a hiatus, Pérez went into Puerto Rican television with the ''

Los Rayos Gamma Los Rayos Gamma is a Puerto Rican comedy troupe specializing in political satire. The group was founded in the late 1960s and is currently composed of: * Jacobo Morales: actor, writer, director, comedian * Silverio Pérez: musician, comedian ...

'' show. In ''Los Rayos Gamma'', he teamed up with

Sunshine Logroño Emmanuel Logroño (born November 1, 1951), better known as Sunshine Logroño, is an American actor. Logroño has worked in Puerto Rican media for close to five decades. Early years Born in New York to a Puerto Rican mother, Logroño moved to Sa ...

Jacobo Morales Jacobo Morales (born 12 November 1934) is a Puerto Rican actor, poet, writer, playwright, filmmaker, and author born in Puerto Rico.Horacio Olivo Horacio Olivo (1933 – July 24, 2016) was a Puerto Rican actor, comedian, and television/radio personality, as well as a classically trained singer. Born in Dorado, Puerto Rico, he got his start in show business in 1949 at long defunct WNEL as a ...

to satirize Puerto Rican politics. Later on, he became the show host of the successful program, ''En Serio Con Silverio''. In 1995, he was credited with coining the term ''

chupacabra The chupacabra or ''chupacabras'' (, literally 'goat-sucker', from , 'sucks', and , 'goats') is a legendary creature, or cryptid, in the folklore of parts of the Americas. The name comes from the animal's purported vampirism the chupacabra is ...

'', referring to creatures around Puerto Rico with a habit of attacking and drinking the blood of livestock, especially goats. In 2000, he debuted in the show '' Anda Pa'l Cará'' on Tele Once; it aired until 2009. * hosting several successful Puerto Rican television shows during his career including the most recent '' Anda Pa'l Cará''. * performing with the known group of political satire called ''

'' (''The Gamma Rays'') * performing with the

nueva trova Nueva Trova (, "new trova") is a movement in Cuban music that emerged around 1967–1968 after the Cuban Revolution of 1959, and the consequent political and social changes. Nueva Trova has its roots in the traditional trova, but differs from it ...

group called '' Haciendo Punto en Otro Son''. * his motivational lectures which are usually called "Humortivación" (Humortivation). * allegedly coining the term

to name the mythical creature responsible for various attacks on animals in Puerto Rico,

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

and the United States

Accident and illness

In 1989, an electric gate caught Pérez's right arm and fractured various arm and hand bones, for which he underwent surgery on at least four occasions. On October 31, 2005, Pérez had a cancerous tumor removed from his

prostate The prostate is an male accessory gland, accessory gland of the male reproductive system and a muscle-driven mechanical switch between urination and ejaculation. It is found in all male mammals. It differs between species anatomically, chemica ...

. Until then, Pérez had been fairly successful in hiding his illness from the Puerto Rican public.

Works

He wrote, in 1996, a book named ''Humortivación'' ("Humortivation", a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

of "Humor" & "motivación"/"motivation"; published in 1998, ), which promotes motivation through humor. It had two sequels, ''Más Humortivación: el camino del éxito'' ("More Humortivation: the Path for Success", 2000, ) and ''Humortivación… otra vez'' ("Humortivation… Again", 2007, ), plus a follow-up, ''Domesticando tu dinosario'' ("Domesticating Your Dinosaur", 2005, ). In 2004, he wrote ''El humor nuestro de cada día: las tres tristes tribus'' ("Our Humor of Every Day: the Three Sad Tribes", ), a critique about Puerto Rican politics. The "three sad tribes" in the title refer to the three local political parties ( PPD, PNP, & PIP) that have dominated politics in the island since 1968. It was followed up in 2008 by another political critique, ''Desde mi grúa: manual del elector aguzao'' ("From My Crane: Manual of the Intelligent Voter", ). In 2009 he released ''Prefiero ser trovador: décimas con amor y humor'' () as a book + CD bundle, which was later followed in 2011 by ''Punto decimal: décimas para decir más'', also a book + CD bundle. In 2010 he wrote a motivational book, ''Abracadabra: buenas palabras'' ("Abracadabra: Good Words", ). He also wrote ''Paso a paso… por el

Camino de Santiago The Camino de Santiago (, ; ), or the Way of St. James in English, is a network of pilgrims' ways or pilgrimages leading to the shrine of the apostle James in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain, where tra ...

: Crónica de un peregrino'' ("Step by Step… Through the Road to Santiago: Chronicle of a Peregrine", 2014, ), a memoir chronicling his experience during his peregrination to the

Santiago de Compostela Cathedral The Santiago de Compostela Archcathedral Basilica ( Spanish and Galician: ) is part of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Santiago de Compostela and is an integral component of the Santiago de Compostela World Heritage Site in Galicia, Spain. The ...

in Galicia,

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. In 2016 he wrote ''La vitrina rota o ¿qué carajo pasó aquí?'' ("The Broken Vitrine, or What the Fuck Happened Here?", ), in which he offered his "introspective view into Puerto Rican history from 1898 to the present", with emphasis on why Puerto Rico filed for bankruptcy. During 2017, he also offered conferences in Puerto Rico and in United States about the island's current situation, based on the contents of this book. In 2017 he wrote a novel, ''Un espejo en la selva'' ("A Mirror in the Jungle", ), about a Puerto Rican psychologist kidnapped by

FARC The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army (, FARC–EP or FARC) was a Marxist–Leninist guerrilla group involved in the continuing Colombian conflict starting in 1964. The FARC-EP was officially founded in 1966 from peasan ...

militants in

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

. He has written several books. Two of the most recent ones, ''Un Espejo en la Selva'' (2017, a novel) and ''La vitrina rota o ¿qué carajo pasó aquí?'' (2016), were awarded by International Latino Book Awards as Best Drama and Historical Book, respectively. He is the composer of songs, among them, the

danza Danza is a musical genre that originated in Ponce, a city in southern Puerto Rico. It is a popular turn-of-the-twentieth-century ballroom dance genre slightly similar to the waltz. Both the danza and its cousin the contradanza are sequence danc ...

dedicated to the island of

Vieques Vieques (; ), officially Isla de Vieques, is an island, town and municipality of Puerto Rico, and together with Culebra, it is geographically part of the Spanish Virgin Islands. Vieques lies about east of the mainland of Puerto Rico, measuri ...

("Isla Nena"). In 2018 he wrote his memoir book ''Sólo CUENTO con el CUENTO que te CUENTO'' ("I Only COUNT with the TALE I TELL You", ), where he told his memories as "parent, professional, artist, and Puerto Rican". Pérez writes a column for El Nuevo Día called (Point of View). He gives "Humortivacion" talks in Puerto Rico and the US, promoting his most recent novel by the same name. In 2020, Pérez recorded with his spouse and 8 other musicians. In 2023, Pérez published ''El secreto de mi padre'' ("My Father's Secret"), a biography of his father Silverio Pérez Rosado, who died on April 25th, 2024 aged, 109 years and 310 days and was the oldest living man in Puerto Rico.

References

External links