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Jesús Colón

Those Puerto Ricans who migrated to the United States during the early part of the 20^th century are often referred to as the pioneros. One of the most visible figures of the New York Puerto Rican community during this period was Jesús Colón.

Colón was born in the tobacco-growing mountain town of Cayey, Puerto Rico. Of working-class origin, he arrived in New York in 1918, as a stowaway in one of the steamships that brought many other Puerto Ricans to the United States during the same period. As his friend and fellow compatriot Bernardo Vega, who had migrated to the United States almost two years earlier, Colón was exposed at a young age to Cayey's socialist culture of the tabaqueros [tobacco workers]. He was only 17 years old when he left Puerto Rico, without a high school diploma, and almost penniless. In New York, he worked in several menial jobs, went to night school, and eventually began to write for the various New York Spanish-language community newspapers. His working class background and exposure during his formative years to the socialist labor movement in Puerto Rico, combined with his own survival struggles as a black Puerto Rican migrant with limited education and little knowledge of English—conditions that he would eventually overcome—turned him into a dedicated community activist and labor organizer. He was an active participant in the struggles for civil rights and social justice of Puerto Ricans and other underprivileged groups, and fervently denounced US colonialism and imperialism over Puerto Rico.

From New York, in 1923 Colón began writing regularly for Justicia, the official newspaper of Puerto Rico's Free Federation of Labor. Between 1927-1928, he became a regular columnist for Bernardo Vega's New York newspaper, Gráfico. Colón's passion for writing is substantiated by his prolific output during more than five decades of journalistic activity. His early journalistic incursions turned into a full-fledged career as a columnist for several other newspapers. He published a column in Pueblos Hispanos (1943-1944), founded in New York by Puerto Rican nationalist poet, Juan Antonio Corretjer. Colón also had a long affiliation with the U.S. socialist workers' newspaper, The Daily Worker (later to become The Worker and the Daily World) that began in the mid-1950s and ended in 1971. From 1957-1961 he was a frequent contributor to the magazine Mainstream. Many of the articles and vignettes which appeared in the above mentioned periodicals have been rescued by the work of U.S.-based Puerto Rican scholars, such as Juan Flores, Edna Acosta-Belén, Virginia Sánchez Korrol, and Edwin Karli Padilla.

Colón was a fervent believer in the effectiveness of community organizing in the struggle for civil rights and social justice and participated in the founding of several grassroots organizations. Among them were, the Ateneo Obrero Hispano [Hispanic Workers' Athenaeum] (1926), La Liga Puertorriqueña e Hispana [Puerto Rican and Hispanic League] (1928), and the Mutualista Obrera Puertorriqueña [Puerto Rican Workers' Mutual Aid Society] (1934). As a committed socialist, he shared a humanitarian and progressive vision, and was a great believer in the possibility of revolutionary change through collective action. He was also an American Labor Party candidate for the New York State Assembly and Senate during the 1950s. His writings and political activities made him the target of investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee of the U.S. Congress in 1959.

Colón's writings, as a whole, are aimed at consciousness raising about social, racial, and political issues. They also reflect an incisive critical view of U.S. society. He admires the democratic foundations upon which the U.S. nation was built, but also recognizes the betrayal of those principles by a capitalist system that perpetuates profound social and racial inequalities, exploits workers, and keeps power and privilege in the hands of a wealthy few. He was critical of U.S. colonial rule in Puerto Rico and was particularly sensitive to the stereotypes and misconceptions about the Puerto Rican people that prevailed in U.S. society. In his writings he also defended African American, Jewish, and women's rights. For Colón, writing was not only a didacticdidactic: Something that is created or adequate for teaching. and consciousness-raising tool in the struggles to eradicate class, racial, and gender oppression, but also the means to forge a historical record about the contributions of Puerto Rican workers to the building of their communities and to U.S. society.

A self-selected collection of Colón's writings was published in 1961 under the title A Puerto Rican in New York and Other Sketches. The little known book was then reprinted in 1982, thanks to the scholarly efforts of Juan Flores. Over a decade later scholars Edna Acosta-Belén and Virginia Sánchez Korrol collected hundreds of Colón's writings, which were scattered in several Spanish and English-speaking newspapers, along with some unpublished materials about the history of the New York Puerto Rican community that were part of his personal papers. A selection of these appeared in the volume, The Way It Was and Other Writings by Jesús Colón (1993). In 1983, almost a decade after Colón's death, his personal papers were donated to the Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños Library and Archives at Hunter College in New York and are now part of a special collection. The Teatro Pregones, a prominent New York theater company, has created the play La rosa roja [The Red Rose], based on Colón's personal papers and published writings.