Julia De Burgos: The Foremother of the Nuyorican Movement
Julia de Burgos, an icon to the Hispanic community. Murals painted, books written, dozens of poems dedicated to the woman whose writings sparked a fire in generations beyond her time. For many artists, the works they produce often do not come to fruition until after their passing. In the case of De Burgos, she knew that her writings would not get the proper recognition in the time period in which they were produced. However, her nationalistic views and encouragement towards Puerto Rican independence allowed her to be considered an author that was both in and ahead of her time by future critics.
THE LIFE OF DE BURGOS
From the beginning of her life, De Burgos faced a variety of hardships that would shape her into the writer that she is famously known for. The impoverished childhood she faced, her moving to different foreign countries, and what some critics deem to be a very “promiscuous” love life did not define who De Burgos was. Instead, De Burgos took advantage of the cards dealt with her in the game of life in order to become the poet that would inspire future generations. This poet would be cherished by Hispanic communities both in the United States and Puerto Rico.
The early life of De Burgos. On February 17t h, 1914, the farmer, Francisco Burgos Hans, and his wife, Paula Garcia De Burgos, would become parents to the first of their thirteen children. Julia Constanza Burgos García was born into an impoverished life in Carolina, Puerto Rico. Before her first marriage to Ruben Rodriguez Beauchamp, Garcia trained and worked as a teacher. After divorcing her first husband, Garcia made the symbolic choice to change her last name to “De Burgos.” In Spanish, the addition of “de” in one’s name symbolizes possession of that person or a woman’s marital status to a man. By adding the “de” in front of her maiden name to become “De Burgos,” Julia De Burgos had symbolically taken possession of herself. This symbolic change in name would begin the controversy of radical ideas that De Burgos was known for during her time. (Garcia).
In 1939, De Burgos left Puerto Rico to be with Juan Isidro Jimenes Grullon. De Burgos first traveled to New York City and then met Grullon in Cuba. After two years of being together, their relationship deteriorated due to the disapproval Grullon’s family had for De Burgos. In 1942, De Burgos eventually found her way back into New York City where she would spend much time working and producing numerous writings. (Garcia)
While in the city, De Burgos worked with the Puerto Rican nationalist leader, Juan Antonio Corretjer. Around 1944, the nationalist leader and his second wife, Consuelo Lee y Tapia, co-founded Pueblos Hispanos. The anti-imperialist paper served the mission to promote Puerto Rican nationalism. The couple wanted to spark a Puerto Rican nationalist movement from the city and aid Puerto Rico in demanding independence from the imperialism of the United States. In addition to supporting the Puerto Rican nationalist movement, the paper also supported the nationalist movements of different countries around the world. Julia De Burgos became a contributor to the paper during her time in New York and later became the editor of the Art and Culture Center section of the paper. (Rosario, “Julia De Burgos Inscribed on the Cultural Map of New York City”).
Published collections and the Pueblos Hispanos. In 1917, the United States Congress passed the Jones Act that established Puerto Rico as United States territory (Rosario, “The Afterlives of Julia De Burgos”) . This act granted Puerto Ricans citizenship into the United States and an easy way to migrate into the country (Rosario, “The Afterlives of Julia De Burgos”). Despite migrating to the US as a citizen, De Burgos and many of the other Puerto Rican migrants faced racial and linguistic discrimination within the streets and workforce of the city (Rosario, “Julia De Burgos Inscribed on the Cultural Map of New York City”). Being a Puerto Rican experiencing the issues of discrimination first hand, De Burgos took advantage of her position with the paper. De Burgos published writings in the paper that discussed the conflicts Puerto Ricans faced in the city as well as her concerns for the Puerto Rican island. According to Rosario’s “The Afterlives of Julia De Burgos”, within her various writings, De Burgos “expressed her visions of freedom, human dignity, social justice, and self-determination for Puerto Rico.” De Burgos had wanted to inspire nationalism within the pockets of Puerto Rican communities forming within the city. Through this nationalism and use of the ideology of basic human rights, De Burgos wrote to follow the paper’s mission in demanding Puerto Rican independence from the imperialism of the United States.
In addition to her work with the periodical, De Burgos published multiple collections of poetry. Some of the poems published within these collections depicted the lives of Puerto Ricans in the city. The second collection of poems published in 1940, “Cancion de la VerdadSencilla” (“Song of the Simple Truth”), even won a Puerto Rican literary prize. However, despite her evident intelligence on various subject matters, it was difficult for De Burgos to be accepted in the Puerto Rican literary and intellectual circles in her time. Society during the life of De Burgos was influenced by the conservative beliefs of Roman Catholicism. Additionally, traces of discriminatory beliefs against those from African descent were still present as well. The multiple marriages De Burgos had, her African descent, and her gender in a time where women were not well respected, put De Burgos at a disadvantage in the world of intellectualism and literacy. However, the variety of themes and ideologies expressed within her writings allowed her to transcend across future generations. (Garcia)
The ambiguity of her death. As the last years of her life loomed over her, De Burgos fell into a depression. Along with being depressed, De Burgos also found herself falling into the hands of alcoholism. The great amounts of alcohol consumed led to her development of cirrhosis of the liver and a respiratory disease. On July 5t h, 1953, De Burgos was found collapsed on a street in East Harlem and died on the way to the hospital. When she was found, officials were unable to identify her due to a lack of personal identifications that were not found on her during the time of her death. Unfortunately, it was not until after she was buried in Potter’s Field that her family learned of her passing. Official documents revealed the cause of death was pneumonia that was made worse by her prior illnesses. (Garcia).
The ambiguity of her death is used as an argument for the creation of Julia De Burgos as an icon and a figure worthy of being admired. According to “The Afterlife of Julia De Burgos”, “The desire to rescue her for our collective memory is rooted in her death in anonymity and her burial in Potter’s Field: we want to save her, give her a name, and reconstruct her nebulous portrait.” Rosario describes how the transcendence of De Burgos is partly due to her death. Rosario discusses the unfortunate circumstance of De Burgos’ death and proposes the idea that she has become famous partly because the Hispanic community wishes to save her from such a lonely parting from this world. De Burgos’ rise as an icon and “need” to be saved may have also been due to Hispanic communities recognizing the lack of proper recognition De Burgos received during her life. It was not until decades after that the work of De Burgos enabled her to become an icon within the Puerto Rican community.
THE LEGACY OF DE BURGOS
Arguments have been made that De Burgos herself knew that her radical ideas would receive proper recognition long after her passing. In her poem, “Poema Para mi Muerte”(“Poem for My Death”), De Burgos wrote, “What shall I be called when all remains of me/is a memory, upon a rock of a deserted isle? / A carnation wedged between the wind and my own shadow, / death’s child and my own, I will be known as a poet” (Garcia). Long before her sudden and anonymous passing, De Burgos knew she wanted to leave this earth as a poet. However, De Burgos also knew that her, at the time, “radicalized” ideas would create difficulty for her during her lifetime. However, it is these same ideas that would serve as her legacy to inspire future generations. It is within her poetry and various literary works that she “grappled with class and gender issues, U.S. colonial rule, and the legacy of slavery on the island, thus influencing the ideas of countless future generations of Puerto Rican artists and activists, both on the island and in New York” (Julia De Burgos). It is these future generations of artists and activists that would take inspiration in her writings and claim her to be the “literary foremother of the Nuyorican movement” (Garcia).
Becoming an icon. As admiration for De Burgos’ writings expanded across generations, she became an icon for both native Puerto Ricans and those living within the city. An icon, as Rosario defined it in “The Afterlives of Julia De Burgos”, is “a person or thing that is regarded as a representative symbol… these symbols rely on the presence of an interpretive community that is able to recognize them and read them as iconic.” De Burgos in this sense became a symbol for surpassing societal norms as she spoke out against various political ideologies and the suppression of the patriarchy. The publishing of her first collection of poems, “Poema en Viente Surcos” (“Poem in Twenty Furrows”), was the beginning of the development of this status as an icon. For De Burgos:
Those were the poems that made her the monumental cultural icon—Julia, the vehement voice of freedom for her subjugated and poverty-stricken island; the most radical poetic voice of her time against women’s oppression…creator of verses that summon the impoverished masses to unite and raise their fists in revolt. These are among the most fundamental and now celebrated attributes that account for Burgos’s iconic reputation and which remained largely silenced in the politically repressive environment endured by nationalists in Puerto Rico, especially from the 1930s to the 1950s. (Edna, 192)
Within this quote, the power of De Burgos’ writings to “summon” Puerto Ricans to stand up and revolt is reflected. De Burgos was unapologetic in her writings against women’s oppression and the oppression of the United States. This lack of fear to speak out is one of the reasons why she has become admired by many. Two decades after her passing, De Burgos was found amid a new community of writers and artists. This new community used her works as inspiration for their own pieces of artistry and political statements. This community of artists would become members of the Nuyorican Movement. (Rosario, “The Afterlives of Julia DeBurgos”).
THE NUYORICAN MOVEMENT
During her life, De Burgos struggled to be a woman in the literary world who was divorced and of African American descent. The influence that conservative beliefs had on society forced De Burgos to be unaccepted within the Puerto Rican literary and intellectual world. She was alienated in these intellectual circles and upon moving to New York as a citizen of the United States, experienced racial and sexist discrimination for being a woman of Hispanic and African American descent. The continued unnecessary discrimination for matters out of control left her feeling as foreign in the city as she did in her native home, a home she left to find new opportunities and create a better life. However, despite those who would put her down, De Burgos’ free spirit continued to produce works of nationalistic and feministic views. Many of these works would follow those two themes of nationalism and feminism, and would later inspire the future artists of the Nuyorican Movement to speak out against similar oppressions.
The Nuyorican Movement. The Nuyorican Movement was a movement of artists whose works depicted the social, political, and economic struggles of Puerto Ricans in New York City. The movement is commonly known to have been from 1960 to 1970. However, the original cafe where many of the artists would go to perform their writings is still used today for similar expressions of art from artists within the city and all over. (“A Brief Guide to Nuyorican Poetry”).
The term “Nuyorican” is a mixture of the phrase “New York Puerto Rican” and “Neorican.” The phrase “Nuyorican” was used by native Puerto Ricans to distinguish between those from the native island and those from the city. During the 1950s, the United States granted commonwealth status to Puerto Rico. This decision from the US government sparked an influx of migration from the Puerto Rican island into the US. Many of these Puerto Rican migrants established themselves in New York City. Puerto Rican communities began to form throughout the city and in particular the Lower East Side and East Harlem. Many members of these communities faced “discrimination… in schools and workplaces…lack of economic opportunities, poor living conditions, and [a] general marginalization of their community.” It is these same issues that Nuyorican writers often portrayed in their writings and various forms of expressive art. These conflicts explored in the products of Nuyorican artists were similar to the issues De Burgos wrote about in her own writings. (“A Brief Guide to Nuyorican Poetry”).
In New York City, the great wave of Puerto Rican migration that occurred in the 1950s changed the cultural presentation of the city as Puerto Rican communities emerged (“A Brief Guide to Nuyorican Poetry”). Similar to the experience De Burgos faced during her time in the city, many of these migrants experienced various forms of discrimination and segregation. However, unlike De Burgos, these migrants came into the city when society was experiencing “a switch from self-hate to self-love…that was an important marker for us [Puerto Rican migrants]. Embrace who we are” (Navarro). The shift to an ideology of self-love enabled a spark of Puerto Rican nationalism to become ignited, a spark that De Burgos attempted to ignite herself many years ago. Soon after, a wave of literary works was being produced from the flames of pride and self-expression that burned in the hearts of the artists who would lead the Nuyorican movement in the 1970s.
Puerto Rican Nationalism. Many of the writings produced during the Nuyorican movement were inspired by and reflected similar ideas written by Julia De Burgos. The first of many themes that overlapped with her writings was Puerto Rican nationalism. During her time, De Burgos wrote to attempt to increase Puerto Rican pride in New York and aid in a revolt against US imperialism. This pride that De Burgos wanted to entice rose amongst the city’s Puerto Rican and Hispanic communities during the Nuyorican movement.
Vanessa Perez Rosario is a professor at the City University of New York who devoted much of her work to studying the life and influence of Julia De Burgos. The professor has produced various academic articles and published the book, “Becoming Julia de Burgos: The Making of a Puerto Rican Icon”, to highlight the growing influence the poet has on both the native island and the US. In an interview, Rosario discussed that during the 1950s, native Puerto Rican writers wrote how “ ‘the move to New York is seen as the death of Puerto Rican identity…almost a slow suicide’ ” (Martorell). However, when it came to De Burgos, Rosario stated, “I didn’t see it that way. I saw her legacy and what she inspired in writers and artists here as a celebration, an affirmation of Puerto Rican identity” (Martorell). This affirmation and celebration of Puerto Rican identity that De Burgos wrote about are portrayed through her works in the nationalist magazine Pueblos Hispanos ( Martorell). Articles published by De Burgos called upon Puerto Rican and Hispanic communities to stand united against the suppression faced by many around the city. The interview with Rosario continues to state how:
De Burgos…could be considered a precursor of “Nuyorican” identity… “It was about a more expansive idea of identity because it incorporated other elements in Harlem, such as African-American identity, and also other Latinos who lived in New York,” said Pérez Rosario. “There was a sense of this need for solidarity, working together, which have been picked up and more developed by the Nuyorican movement in the 1970s.” (Martorell)
Being a woman of not only Puerto Rican descent, but of African American descent as well, opened De Burgos to the experiences of many forms of discrimination. After all the mistreatment, De Burgos felt that these communities must rise together in union. She believed that when these Hispanic and African communities stood united, their voice against the discriminatory injustice would be more powerful. Although De Burgos lived in a society whose nationalism was more difficult to arouse, her writings served a great purpose of providing an identity to future Puerto Rican, African American, and Latino/Latina writers.
Feministic views. Julia De Burgos’ promiscuous love-life, addiction to alcohol, and sense of independence forced her to be an outsider in a patriarchal society heavily influenced by conservative beliefs. Unable to be accepted within intellectual circles in her native land, De Burgos moved to the city and was later considered to be a “sexile”(Martorell). A sexile, as defined by Rosario in the previously mentioned interview, is an individual who moves out of their native country to escape gender oppression and discrimination (Martorell). De Burgos allowed her experience with gender discrimination to influence her writing and published works that touch on the theme in her second collection of poetry, Poema en veinte surcos(Poem in twenty furrows) (Rosario, “A Latina Feminist to Remember: Puerto Rican Poet Julia De Burgos”) . In an article written for Ms. Magazine, Rosario wrote how De Burgos served as a:
role model for contemporary Latina feminist writers and visual artists…her second collection… explores equally themes of social justice and women’s rights, establishing De Burgos as an anti-imperial, anti-colonial feminist…Nuyorican poet Sandra María Esteves notes that de Burgos represents ‘all of those women, like my own mother, who migrated to New York in the early part of the century in search of a better life, only to be confronted with a different reality.’ (Rosario, “A Latina Feminist to Remember: Puerto Rican Poet Julia De Burgos”)
For these women, self-expression was held back due to the constant pressures of society to behave a certain way. However, what was deemed as radicalized behavior and ideas served to be an inspiration for women to stand up against gender oppression in society and behave in the same free-spirited way that De Burgos did.
CONCLUSION
The Nuyorican movement served as a rebirth for not only the Puerto Rican community but the Hispanic and African American communities as well. These communities began developing a sense of pride and embraced their cultural identities. Along with the cultural awakening, Latina women found themselves in a time in history where societal norms were beginning to change and their self-expression was no longer an excuse to be scrutinized. Writers and artists expressed these ideas through all forms of art. However, they did not forget those before them who shared in the same ideologies and wrote to set examples and inspiration for these movements. The gifts of literary talent and expression of these same ideas by the icon, Julia De Burgos, are what has enabled her to be considered as not only the precursor but the foremother of the Nuyorican movement.
Work Cited
“A Brief Guide to Nuyorican Poetry.” Poets.org, Academy of American Poets, 18 Sept. 2017,
poets.org/text/brief-guide-nuyorican-poetry. Edna Acosta-Belén; Rediscovering Julia de Burgos: The People’s Rebel Soul
Poet. Small Axe 1 November 2017; 21 (3 (54)): 188–202. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/07990537-4272085
Garcia, Maria. “Overlooked No More: Julia De Burgos, a Poet Who Helped Shape Puerto Rico’s Identity.” Www.nytimes.com, New York Time, 2 May 2018,www.nytimes.com/2018/05/02/obituaries/overlooked-julia-de-burgos.html
Martorell, Carlos RodrÍguez. “The Multifaceted Legacy of Poet Julia De Burgos.” Showcasing the Best of the Community and Ethnic Media, Voices of New York, 3 Dec. 2014, voicesofny.org/2014/12/julia-de-burgos-multifaceted-legacy/.
Navarro, Mireya. “The Poetry of the Nuyorican Experience; Writers Following in the Literary Tradition of Miguel Piñero Thrive in a Poets’ Cafe.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 2 Jan. 2002,
“Julia De Burgos.” Valor y Cambio, 2014, www.valorycambio.org/juliadeburgos.
Rosario, Vanessa Perez. “A Latina Feminist to Remember: Puerto Rican Poet Julia De Burgos.” Ms. Magazine, 5 July 2011,
msmagazine.com/2011/07/05/a-latina-feminist-to-remember-puerto-rican-poet-julia- de-burgos/.
Rosario, Vanessa Perez. “Julia De Burgos Inscribed on the Cultural Map of New York City.” Translation Review, vol. 81, no. 1, 2011, pp. 73–81.
Rosario, Vanessa Perez. “The Afterlives of Julia De Burgos.” Academia.edu – Share Research, Duke University Press, 2017,
www.academia.edu/35211144/The_Afterlives_of_Julia_de_Burgos.
