Photo courtesy of Musician and Community Activist Joaquín Rivera (1946- 2009) Joaquín Rivera was a musician and activist who revitalized Puertorriqueño traditions in his local Philadelphia community and shared them on national stages. Joaquin Rivera was born in the Puerto Rican mountain town of Cayey in 1946. The youngest of eleven children, he experienced hardship …
Photo from edmorales.net Puerto Rican, Sociology, Activism Juan Flores (1943-2014) Juan Flores, born John Martin Flores, in Richmond, Virginia, was a professor of social and cultural analysis and director of Latino studies at New York University. He earned his BA from Queens College New York, his MA and PhD in German Literature from Yale University, …
Photo from the Voces Oral History Center, Moody College of Communication, The University of Texas at Austin. Puerto Rican, Sociology, Activism Frank Bonilla (1925-2010) Dr. Frank Bonilla was an academic researcher and early pioneer of Puerto Rican Studies, serving as the first director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at the City University of …
Photographer unknown; promotional image used in many publications. Puerto Rican, Material Culture, Folklore, History Teodoro Vidal Santoni (1923-2016) A self-taught historian, Teodoro Vidal Santoni uncovered more than four centuries of Puerto Rican culture, traditions, and popular art, and raised them to international recognition. Born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Vidal Santoni attended the …
Photograph from the Pura Belpré Papers, Archives of the Puerto Rican Diaspora, Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Hunter College, CUNY Puerto Rican, Language, Children’s Folklore, Cultural Activism, Library Work Pura Belpré (1899-1982) Pura Teresa Belpré is remembered most notably for being New York City’s first Puerto Rican librarian, establishing and expanding the library system’s Spanish-language …
Image from EnciclopediaPR, enciclopediapr.org. Puerto Rican, Folklore María Cadilla de Martínez, PhD (1886-1951) María Cadilla de Martínez was born in 1886 in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, thirteen years before Puerto Rico’s official independence from Spain in 1898. Cadilla’s life and career focused on promoting Boricua (an indigenous term often used to refer to Puerto Rican-ness) folklore, …