Naming East 106 Street After Puerto Rican Poet Julia de Burgos:
An Opportunity to Affirm El Barrio-East Harlem’s Multicultural Unity and Solidarity

By William Gerena Rochet

We live in a multicultural society and El Barrio-East Harlem is a community where its residents, through Community Board 11, can serve as an example for others. Multiculturalism exists in a community or society when neighbors of diverse national backgrounds know of each other’s cultures and at best welcome and share them, or at second best are in solidarity with them. In either case, there is reason for celebration. This creates the social basis not only for sharing food, literature, dance, commemorations, and learning about each other’s historical figures, but most importantly, for coming together to struggle for a better life in their community.

In order for a multicultural society to avoid being dysfunctional, it must be guided by anti-racism, anti-sexism, opposition to all forms of narrow chauvinism, or attitudes of superiority. A multicultural society is one where solidarity among neighbors is the starting point towards unity. Otherwise the social aberrations and dysfunctions that emanate from hate, violence and division, make possible oppression, poverty and the other social afflictions eating at the core of our existence.  A fervent commitment to anti-racism, anti-sexism and opposition to all kinds of narrow chauvinism, etc., is what has made possible the great struggles for human, civil, labor, and immigrant rights. Nevertheless, though much has been achieved these efforts are still “a work in progress.”

In this context, the African American struggle for human and civil rights has had a special meaning and leading place in US history, and one may be tempted to see it “as second to none.” The danger of such claims is that they can be used to minimize the importance and contributions of others who have much in common when African-Americans take on the role of the managers, keepers, or oppressors on the presumption that there is “not enough to go around for everyone”.  This implied concept of scarcity hides the reality of abundance. How much wealth would go around in the form of affordable housing, healthcare, top quality public education, aid to cultural institutions, free college education, etc., if a selected few were not allowed keep trillions by virtue of tax loopholes, rent & wage-exploitation and government corruption?

Affirming that the African American struggle for human and civil rights is “second to none” obscures and diminishes our awareness of the genocide Native Americans continue to endure as a result of the violence, broken treaties that took away their lands, and relocated them onto apartheid-like “Indian Reservations.”

It obscures and diminishes our awareness of how Japanese-Americans were stripped of their civil and property rights and placed in apartheid-like Internment Camps during World War II.

It obscures and diminishes our awareness of the conquest of the Western territories, once part of Mexico, which resulted in the inhabitants of the area being treated as less than second-class citizens.

In the case of Puerto Ricans, it obscures and diminishes our awareness of how Puerto Rico, a colony of Spain in 1898, was struggling and gaining ground for its Independence only to become war booty in settlement of the Spanish-American War, when the United States took over as the new master by force of arms.

Today the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is under US government control, yet Puerto Ricans do not vote to elect members of the US government. Because Puerto Rico is not an independent country or sovereign nation, it is not a member of the United Nations and, as such, cannot be its own boss in matters of international trade.

In the early 1900s many poor Puerto Ricans were recruited as cheap farm labor and factory workers. This is the period when US Big Money created the conditions to take over the Puerto Rico’s economy for the benefit of US banks and corporations, much as in other parts of the Caribbean and Latin America. This foreign policy, which kills off local businesses and imposes oppressive working conditions, requires rulers chosen by the United Sates to take care of “business,” has resulted in new waves of immigrants seeking to escape deeper poverty and oppression.

Upon arriving in the US, Puerto Ricans have had to struggle against many barriers including the mastery of the English language.

East Harlem, once an Italian enclave, became the home of many Puerto Ricans, and is now known as “El Barrio-Spanish Harlem.” It has never been an exclusively Latino or Puerto Rican neighborhood, but it is strongly associated as the cradle of the Puerto Rican Diaspora in the US, just as Harlem is seen as the Mecca of the African-American community in the US.

“El Barrio-Spanish Harlem”, is where the world famous Puerto Rican poet Julia de Burgos, came to live and die. To many Puerto Ricans she is their Maya Angelou, though Julia (1917-1953) was a contemporary of Langston Hughes (1902-1967). This is what is behind the campaign of El Museo del Barrio and Council member Melissa Mark-Viverito to name East 106 Street from 5th Avenue to the East River Julia de Burgos Boulevard. Its application to Community Board 11 includes over one thousand (1000) signatures of residents and numerous letters of support from local businesses, community based organizations, schools, churches and elected officials. The impact of naming of 106th in honor of Julia de Burgos will have repercussions not only in El Barrio, but throughout our City, in Chicago, in Paterson, Hartford, Boston, Philadelphia, Orlando, Cleveland, San Juan, etc. 

Even among the Latino community, including Latinos of Puerto Rican heritage, we can expect that they will find their self-worth through a “Puerto Rican Renaissance” experience -- much as the Harlem Renaissance transformed African-American identity and history, thereby transforming American history and culture in general. Today in America we read the writings of African-Americans and embrace the African-American community's achievements, productions, expressions, and style.

It often appears that the perspective of a true multicultural neighborhood is missing in Community Board 11 given its composition and how issues are dealt with and voted upon. One young African American who heard that a Committee of the Board had voted to withhold its support for this re-naming said: “It seems to me that this is not a question of asking “Why” (re-naming the street) but a question of “Why not?”

And this can be seen as a very significant paradigm for our community. In asking “Why not?” we are invited to learn more of each other’s heroes, leaders, contributions, celebrations – our cultures. We could make it the core of our educational curriculum. In fact: the planning board should introduce a curriculum for its members and the residents at large that nurtures inclusiveness and eventual empowerment.

So, “Why Not” have East 106 Street named after a great poet, Julia de Burgos and have similar experience for all in the context of a heterogeneous and united existence? Let us learn from:

Still I Rise  
by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

The Negro Speaks of Rivers
by Langston Hughes

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world
and older than the flow of human blood
in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

… and from Julia de Burgos:
Song of the Simple Truth,
Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos
Curbstone Press (1996).
From an English translation:

#12 Ay, Ay, Ay of the Kinky-Haired Negress

Ay, ay, ay, that I am kinky-haired and pure black;
kinks in my hair, Kafir in my lips;
and my flat nose Mozambiques.

Black of pure tint, I cry and laugh
the vibration of being a black statue;
a chunk of night, in which my white
teeth are lightning;
and to be a black vine which entwines in the black
and curves the black nest in which the raven lies.
Black chunk of black in which I sculpt myself,
ay, ay, ay, my statue is all black.

They tell me that my grandfather was the slave
for whom the master paid thirty coins.
Ay, ay, ay, that the slave was my grandfather
is my sadness, is my sadness.
If he had been the master
It would be my shame
that in men, as in nations,
if being the slave is having no rights
being the master is having no conscience.

Ay, ay, ay, wash the sins of the  white King
in forgiveness black Queen.

Ay, ay, ay, the race escapes me
and buzzes and flies toward the white race,
to sink in its clear water;
or perhaps the white will be shadowed in the black

Ay, ay, ay, my black race flees
and with the white runs to become bronzed;
to be one for the future, fraternity of America!

#12 Ay, ay, ay de la grifa negra (Spanish)

Ay, ay, ay, que soy grifa y pura negra;
grifería en mi pelo, cafrería en mis labios;
y mi chata nariz mozambiquea.

Negra de intacto tinte, lloro y río
la vibracción de ser estatua negra;
de ser tozo de noche, en que mis blancos dientes relampaguean;
y ser negro bejuco que a lo negro se enreda
y comba el negro nido en que el cuervo se acuesta.
Negro trozo de negro en que me esculpo,
ay, ay, ay, que mi estatua es toda negra.

Dicenme que mi abuelo fue el esclavo
por quien el amo dio trienta monedas.
Ay, ay, ay, que el, esclavo fue mi abuelo
es mi pena, es mi pena.
Si hubiera sido el amo, sería mi vergüenza;
que en los hombres, igual que en las naciones,
si el ser el siervo es no tener derechos,
el ser el amo es no tener conciencia.

Ay, ay, ay, los pecados del rey blanco
lávelos en perdón la reina negra.

Ay, ay, ay, que la raza se me fuga
y hacia la raza blanca zumba y vuela
a hundirse en su agua clara;
o tal vez si la blanca se ensombrará en la negra.

Ay, ay, ay, qué mi negra raza huye
y con la blanca corre a ser trigueña;
¡a ser del futuro
fraternidad de América!

# 20 Yo misma fui mi ruta

Yo quise ser como los hombres quisieron que yo fuese;
un intento de vida;
un juego al escondite con mi ser.
Pero yo estaba hecha de presentes,
y mis pies planos sobre la tierra promisora
no resistían caminar hacia atrás,
y seguían adelante, adelante,
burlando las cenizas para alcanzar el beso
de los senderos nuevos.

A cada paso adelantado en ml ruta hacia el frente
rasgaba mis espaldas el aleteo desesperado
de los troncos viejos.

Pero la rama estaba desprendida para siempre,
y a cada nuevo azote la mirada mía
se separaba más y más y más
de los lejanos horizontes aprendidos:
y mi rostro iba tomando la expresión que le venía de adentro,
la expresión definida que asomaba
un sentimiento de liberación íntima;
un sentimiento que surgía
del equilibrio sostenido entre mi vida
y la verdad del beso de los senderos nuevos.

Ya definido mi rumbo en el presente,
me sentí brote de todos los suelos de la tierra,
de los suelos sin historia,
de los suelos sin porvenir,
del suelo siempre suelo sin orillas
de todos los hombres y de todas las épocas.

Y fui toda en mí como fue en mí la vida…

Yo quise ser como los hombres quisieron que ye fuese:
un intento de vida;
un juego al escondite con mi ser.
Pero yo estaba hecha de presentes;
cuando ya los heraldos me anunciaban
en el regio desfile de los troncos viejos,
se me torció deseo de seguir a los hombres,
y el homenaje se quedó esperándome.

#20  I Was My Own Route

I wanted to be like men wanted me to be:
an attempt at life;
a game of hide and seek with my being.
But I was made of nows,
and my feet level upon the promissory earth
would not accept walking backwards,
and went forward, forward,
mocking the ashes to reach the kiss
of the new paths.

At each advancing step on my route
forward my back was ripped
by the desperate flapping wings of the old guard.

But the branch was unpinned forever,
and at each new whiplash my look
separated more and more and more
from the distant familiar horizons;
and my face took the expression that came from within,
the defined expression that hinted at a feeling
of intimate liberation;
a feeling that surged
from the balance between my life
and the truth of the kiss of the new paths.

Already my course now set in the present,
I felt myself a blossom of all the soils of the earth,
of the soils without history,
of the soils without a future,
of the soil always soil without edges
of all the men and all the epochs.

And I was all in me as was life in me...

I wanted to be like men wanted me to be:
an attempt at life;
a game of hide and seek with my being.
But I was made of nows;
when the heralds announced me
at the regal parade of the old guard,
the desire to follow men warped in me,
and the homage was left waiting for me.