A Nation of Women: An Early Feminist Speaks Out

Luisa Capetillo was born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico in 1879 to working class parents. She worked in cigar factories as a reader, where she first became active in labor organizing. A committed activist, Capetillo traveled throughout Puerto Rico, the United States, and Cuba to contribute to the international labor movement. She wrote extensively both for the Spanish press, notably in La Mujer, a short-lived feminist working-class magazine that she founded. She is the author of many works relating to her ideas, among them La humanidad del futuro (1910), Verdad y justicia: Cuento de Navidad para niños (1910) and Influencias de las ideas modernas (1916).

Félix V. Matos Rodríguez is the Chancellor of the City University of New York (CUNY). With his appointment, Matos Rodríguez made history by becoming the first educator of color, and the first Latino, selected as CUNY’s Chancellor.