Since 1851, obituaries in The New York Times have been dominated by white men. With Overlooked, we’re adding the stories of remarkable people who went unrecognized.

By

May 2, 2018

When the poet Julia de Burgos left Puerto Rico at 25, she vowed never to return. It was a promise she would keep.

It was a bittersweet departure. For much of her short life, de Burgos championed Puerto Rican nationalism and identity through her writing. She self-published her first collection of poetry, “Poema en veinte surcos” (“Poem in Twenty Furrows”) in 1938, when she was 24.

Her work explored issues like the island’s colonial past and the legacy of slavery and American imperialism. In her poem “Río Grande de Loíza,” she addressed the pain and violence suffered by natives of the island and African slaves along the Puerto Rican river.

Río Grande de Loíza! ... Great river. Great tear. The greatest of all our island tears, But for the tears that flow out of me Through the eyes of my souls for my enslaved people.

Born into poverty, she trained and worked as a teacher before marrying at 20. Divorced three years later, she began an intense romantic relationship with Juan Isidro Jimenes Grullón, a Dominican political exile and an intellectual from a prominent family. Her poetry gave her entree into Puerto Rico’s intellectual circles, yet she did not really fit. It was the 1930s, after all, and she was a divorced woman in a conservative Roman Catholic society, as well as working class and of African descent. The Puerto Rican intellectuals shaping the island’s identity were not ready to embrace the idea of social justice for African descendants — much less feminism.