Remember Julia de Burgos, Puerto Rican poet, ¡Río Grande de Loíza!

Julia De Burgos, (1914-1953), was a renowned Puerto Rican poet and human rights activist. Her writings show a strength and independence that predated the women's rights movement in the United States by twenty years.

En todo me lo juego a ser lo que soy yo"(I play everything to be exactly as I am)

"Songfest: A Cycle of American Poems for Six Singers and Orchestra" (1977) by Leonard Bernstein with lyrics from the poem "A Julia de Burgos"

De Burgos explored the themes of colonialism, human slavery and imperialism. These are common themes in Puerto Rican culture, almost as if genetically encoded in Puerto Rican DNA. But if you're not Puerto Rican and able to step out of yourself for a moment, you might recognize that these themes have the same relevance whether you're descended from colonizer-slaver-imperialist or colonized-enslaved-imperialized. From the source that feeds the great river of Puerto Rico, Julia de Burgos touches our common humanity.

Young people today tend to be much more evolved, but for De Burgos to do what she did in her time was exceptional. She was a divorced, working-class woman with African heritage who worked in a macho (macho) Catholic society where women were expected to stay home and divorce was frowned upon.

Child of the earth and woman of the people