Author Description

Joaquín Colón (1896-1964) was a Puerto Rican activist and writer who, in his later years, felt compelled to recount the history of the first large wave of Puerto Rican immigrants making a life for themselves in New York City. Here, published for the first time is the original Spanish-language manuscript he left behind, a document rich in detail and insight of the evocation of the previously unknown personalities who fought the struggles of labor and political organizing in the early century. The founder of important mutual aid societies, Hispanic political organizations and civic groups, Colón was an indefatigable fighter for Hispanic civic participation and suffrage. An early Hispanic activist in the Democratic Party of Brooklyn, Colón was a pioneer in organizing and motivating political action by Puerto Ricans, who were United States citizens, and in brokering their power for improvements in their lot as a national minority. Always at the center of community culture, Colón was an acclaimed speaker and a widely read columnist in Spanish-language newspapers, where he served as a public conscience writing under his own name, as well as under the pseudonyms of Tello Casiano, Momo and Farallón.