Julia Constancia Burgos García (February 17, 1914 – July 6, 1953) is considered by many as the greatest poet to have been born in Puerto Rico, and along with Gabriela Mistral, is considered as one of the greatest poets of Latin America. She was also an advocate for the independence of Puerto Rico and an ardent civil rights activist for women and African/Afro-Caribbean writers.
Julia de Burgos was born in Carolina, Puerto Rico on February 17, 1914. She was raised in a poor section of Carolina called Barrio Santa Cruz. She was the eldest of thirteen children, six of her youngest siblings died of malnutrition. Her family's poverty did not keep her from developing a love for nature and her country as noted in her first work Río Grande de Loíza: “My childhood was all a poem in the river, and a river in the poem of my first dreams.” Her family moved to Rio Piedras where she was awarded a scholarship to attend University High School. In 1931, she enrolled in University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus to become a teacher.
In 1933, Burgos graduated at the age of nineteen from the University of Puerto Rico with a degree in teaching. She became a teacher and worked at Feijoo Elementary School in Barrio Cedro Arriba of Naranjito, Puerto Rico. She also worked as writer for a children radio program in public radio but is reported that she was fired because of her political beliefs. Her love for literature led her to write poetry. Among her early influences were Luis Llorens Torres, Clara Lair, Rafael Alberti and Pablo Neruda.
In 1934, she married Ruben Rodrigues Beauchamp, and ended her teaching career to dedicate her time to her marriage and her passion for writing. In 1936, she was elected Secretary General of the Daughters of Freedom, a non-partisan women's organization . She was also a member of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party (Partido Nacionalista de Puerto Rico). This was the independence party headed by Pedro Albizu Campos, a Puerto Rican nationalist. Due to time and constraints, her activities had affected her marriage, she and her husband divorced in 1937.
By the early 1930's, Burgos was already a published writer in journals and newspapers. She published three books which contained a collection of her poems. For her first two books, she traveled around the island promoting herself by giving book readings. Her third book was published posthumous in 1954.Burgos's lyrics poems are a combination of the intimate, the land and the social struggle of the oppressed. Many critics asserts that her poetry anticipated the work of feminist writers and poets as well as that of other Hispanic authors. In one of her poems, she writes: “I am life, strength, woman.” Burgos received numerous awards and recognition for her work and was celebrated by poets such as Pablo Neruda. He stated that her calling was to be the greatest poet of the Americas.
Later in life, Burgos became romantically involved with Dr. Juan Isidro Jimenes Grullón, a Dominican physician. According to Grullón, many of her poems during that time were inspired by the love that she felt for him . In 1939, Burgos and Jimenes Grullón traveled first to Cuba where she attended the University of Havana and then later to New York where she worked as a journalist for "Pueblos Hispanos", a progressive newspaper. Shortly upon their arrival in Cuba, her relationship with Jimenes Grullón began to show tension. After trying to save her relationship, she instead left and returned once again to New York, however this time alone, were she took menial jobs to support herself. In 1943, she married Armando Marín, a musician from Vieques. In 1947, the marriage also ended in divorce, lapsing Burgos into further depression and alcoholism.
In August 1953, she wrote one of her last poems, "Farewell in Welfare Island". It was written during her last hospitalization and is believed to be the only poem she wrote in English. In the poem she foreshadows her death and reveals an ever darker concept of life: "It has to be from here,/right this instance,/my cry into the world./My cry that is no more mine,/but hers and his forever,/the comrades of my silence,/the phantoms of my grave." On June 28, 1953, she left the Brooklyn home of a relative she was residing with and disappeared without a clue to where she went.
It was later discovered that on July 6, 1953, she collapsed on a sidewalk in the Spanish Harlem section of Manhattan, and later died of pneumonia at a hospital in Harlem at the age of 39. Since no one initially claimed her body and the fact that she had no identification on her at time of her death, the city gave her a pauper's burial on Hart Island, the city's only potter's field.
Some of her friends and relatives were able to trace and find her grave and claim her body. A committee was organized in Puerto Rico, presided by Dr. Margot Arce de Vázquez, to have her remains transferred to the island. Her remains arrived on September 6, 1953 and funeral services for her were held at the Puerto Rican Atheneum. She was given a hero's burial at the Municipal Cemetery of Carolina. A monument was later built at her burial site by the City of Carolina.
!... Great river. Great flood of tears...save those greater that come from the eyes of my soul for my enslaved people" Julia de Burgos, "El Rio Grande de Loiza"]]On February 19, 1987, the Spanish Department of the University of Puerto Rico posthumously honored Julia de Burgos by granting her a doctorate in Human Letters and Arts. The proclamation was presented to her niece, Maria Consuelo Seaz Burgos.
Cities that have honored Julia de Burgos include:
Carolina, Puerto Rico
Escuela Julia de Burgos
Loiza, Puerto Rico
Paseo Julia de Burgos (Julia de Burgos Way)
New York City, New York
Julia de Burgos Cultural Center
Julia de Burgos Way (corner of East 106th Street and Lexington Avenue)
Julia de Burgos Middle School (M.S. 99)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Julia de Burgos Elementary School
Julia de Burgos Magnet Middle School
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Casa Protegida Julia de Burgos (domestic violence shelter)
Toa Baja, Puerto Rico
Academia Julia de Burgos (Julia de Burgos Academy)
Willimantic, Connecticut
Julia de Burgos Park
The renowned Puerto Rican sculptor Tomás Batista sculpted a bust of Julia which is in the Julia de Burgos Park in Carolina. Puerto Rican poet Giannina Braschi who was born the year of Julia's death pays homage to her poetry and legend in a pivotal scene of the Spanglish novel "Yo-Yo Boing!" A documentary about the life of Julia de Burgos was made in 2002 titled "Julia, toda en mi..." ("Julia, all in me...") directed and produced by Ivonne Belen. Another biopic about her life, "Vida y poesía de Julia de Burgos," was filmed and released in Puerto Rico in 1978.
On September 14, 2010, in a ceremony held in San Juan, the United States Postal Service honored Burgos's life and literary work with the issuance of a first class postage stamp, the 26th release in the postal system's Literary Arts series. The stamp's portrait was created by Toronto-based artist Jody Hewgill.
