Luisa Capetillo

Luisa Capetillo 1919

Luisa Capetillo (born October 28, 1879 in Arecibo , † October 10, 1922 in Río Piedras ) was a Puerto Rican author , activist for women's rights and feminism , organizer in the labor movement and anarchist .

In her essays, Capetillo wrote about free love , among other things , including that women should have the right to choose whom they want to love and marry, without any authoritarian, state or legal tutelage. She was also known for being the first woman to wear pants in public and was arrested for wearing "men's clothes" in Cuba and Puerto Rico.

Life

Capetillo grew up in a liberal family in Arecibo. Her father, Luis Capetillo Echevarria, came from Spain, her mother, Luisa Margarita Perone, from France. Both had come to Puerto Rico to try their luck in the hope of a better life. Luisa Margarita Perone had planned to work as a governess for the children of wealthy families, but was employed as a housemaid. Luis Capetillo Echevarria was a worker who earned his living in various professions.

When she was nineteen, Luisa Capetillo fell in love with a young man from Arecibo, with whom she had two children. After four years, the relationship broke down.

As a single mother, she worked in a textile factory. Although she was baptized a Catholic, she disliked the strict rules and dogmas of the Catholic Church. However, Capetillo believed in what they believed to be Christian values of "justice and equality". She was also convinced of the anarchist philosophy, which at that time found more and more followers in Arecibo and neighboring cities.

Act

Capetillo gave lectures in a local tobacco factory on current events and readings from the works of Émile Zola , Charles Darwin , Friedrich Engels , Michail A. Bakunin and others. Here she made her first acquaintance with the trade union movement. In 1904 she published essays entitled My Opinion , which were published in the union newspaper.

In 1905, Capetillo took part in a workers 'strike and became one of the leaders of the first union in Puerto Rico, the Federación Regional de Trabajadores ("Regional Workers' Union"). Because of ideological disagreements, Capetillo and other members founded a new union, the Federación Libre de Trabajadores (Free Labor Association, FLT). Capetillo traveled through Puerto Rico with the aim of getting women excited about women's rights. In 1908, at a meeting of the union, she demanded that it advocate women's suffrage.

In 1909 the FLT initiated a campaign under the name cruzada del ideal ("Crusade of the Ideal"), in which Capetillo took part. Her essay My Opinion on the Freedoms, Rights and Duties of Women comes from this time . Although she was a staunch feminist, she did not participate in the emerging feminist organizations. Her activity focused on the labor movement and its union, in which she campaigned for women's rights. Numerous workers became members of the union through their demands and activities. In her opinion, a proletarian women's movement should be an integral part of the organized labor movement, with the aim of fighting for universal suffrage, better working conditions and higher wages. Capetillo is considered to be one of the first women's rights activists in Puerto Rico.

In New York City in 1912, Capetillo organized Cuban and Puerto Rican tobacco workers for better working conditions. Since she was often in New York, she opened a vegetarian restaurant there, which became a meeting place for socialist discussion groups. Between 1912 and 1916 she took part in a workers' strike in Cuba , which was organized by the Anarchist Federation of Cuba (La Federación Anarquista) . Capetillo was arrested and deported in Havana in July 1915. Her arrest was based on the argument that she wore "men's clothes" (pants) in public.

In Tampa, Florida, she had also organized the workers and gave readings there in a tobacco factory. In Florida she published the second edition of My Opinion . In 1919, Capetillo asked the women of Puerto Rico to wear pants. At the time, this was a major provocation that amounted to a "crime" (Shirley Aldebol). Capetillo was arrested, but the judge responsible later dismissed the charges. In the same year she traveled to the Dominican Republic to support striking workers. The Socialist Workers' Party there led a political campaign in which Capetillo participated, even if the party did not share its anarchist worldview.

Capetillo traveled back to Puerto Rico and organized a strike (also the Sugar Cane Strike of 1916) in which around 40,000 workers took part. Between 1916 and 1918, the largest strikes in Puerto Rico history occurred, resulting in a general wage increase of 13%.

Luisa Capetillo died of tuberculosis in October (or April) 1922 . She was buried in the Arecibo municipal cemetery.

General

In Arecibo there is a non-profit organization (foundation) called Casa Protegida Luisa Capetillo . It has set itself the task of helping physically and mentally abused women. The University of Puerto Rico founded the Centro de Documentación Sala Luisa Capetillo in March 1990 . The center is part of the Women's Studies project launched in 1986.

Works

A Nation Of Women: An Early Feminist Speaks Out / Mi opinión sobre las libertades , by Luisa Capetillo. Publisher: Arte Publico Press, March 2005. ISBN 978-1558854277 Online information available. Google Books
Absolute Equality: An Early Feminist Perspective / Influencias De Las Ideas Modernas (Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage) by Luisa Capetillo. Publisher: Arte Publico Pr; 1st edition, August 2011. ISBN 978-1558855229
Amor y Anarquia: Los Escritos de Luisa Capetillo (Spanish Edition) by Luisa Capetillo. Publisher: Ediciones Huracan, Inc., Primera edicion (1992) ISBN 978-0929157153

Film, video, theater

Luisa Capetillo: Pasión de justicia (1995) . Documentary, 45 minutes. Country: Puerto Rico. Language: Spanish. Filming locations: Puerto Rico. Online information in the Internet Movie Database .
Luisa Capetillo - Free Love - YouTube . Video, 8:13 minutes.
The 50th Festival of Puerto Rican Theater . Theater: Luisa Capetillo: The Active Muse . Dr. Jessica Gaspar presents "Luisa Capetillo: la musa active" [ Luisa Capetillo: The Active Muse ], a play inspired by the life and work of Luisa Capetillo. It will take place at 8:00 pm, in the Julia de Burgos Theater, School of Humanities, at the University of Puerto Rico - Río Piedras (May 13, 2009).

Web links

LUISA CAPETILLO Y SALVADORA MEDINA ONRUBIA DE BOTANA: DOS ÍCONOS ANARQUISTAS. UNA COMPARACIÓN . (Luisa Capetillo and Salvadora Onrubia de Botana, two anarchist icons). Universidad de Los Lagos (2011).

Individual evidence

↑ Short biography . Here the date of death is given as April 10, 1922
↑ See: Norma Valle Ferrer: Luisa Capetillo, pioneer Puerto Rican feminist . Quote: “Luisa Capetillo (1879-1922) was a pioneer in the struggle for women's and worker's rights. A feminist and an anarchist, she earned her living as a labor leader and journalist. She wrote brilliant theoretical vegetarianism, a daily regime of Swedish calisthenics, and was the first woman in the Caribbean to wear pants in public. Her life can be read as a dramatic novel, every day an intense ode to personal and political liberation ".
↑ About her ideas about love and living together, she wrote: “The fact that a woman loves a man and gives herself to him should not be construed as the man exercising his privilege over the woman. And simply because she gives herself to her companion doesn't mean she has authority over him. Free before they lived together, they loved each other freely; and having joined together freely, the man and woman should be autonomous in all their manifestations after they have sealed their union. "From: Luisa Capetillo: A Nation Of Women: An Early Feminist Speaks Out; Mi Opinion Sobre las libertades, derechos y deberes de la mujer .
↑ See: Robin Kadison Berson: Marching to a different drummer: unrecognized heroes of history . Quotation: "As a society shaped by conservative, deeply Catholic, rigidly patriarchal Spain, 19th-century Puerto Rico had little sympathy for rebels, religious nonconformists, or outspoken women. Luisa Capetillo was all three. An eloquent, inspiring labor leader and proponent of social justice, Capetillo offered her own life in total dedication to the principles of anarchism and women's rights. She was a highly educated woman, economically and intellectually independent, a single mother, a respected voice in the male-dominated union movement, a passionate advocate for women's control of their bodies and relationship, a rational evangelist for a truly radical Christian vision - a neglected, major voice of immediate, contemporary impact ”(page 56).
↑ Luisa Capetillo: Art / Agitation / Anarchy! ( Memento of the original from January 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . English, accessed April 14, 2013 @1@ 2

↑ Capetillo, Luisa - a biography . English, accessed April 14, 2013

^ Author: Leslie Feinberg, February 4, 2007 . Bodies shackled and repressed . Quotation: “Cross-dressing Puerto Rican labor organizer Luisa Capetillo was arrested in Havana in July 1915 for wearing men's clothing.” (…) Historian Aurora Levins Morales concluded, “The incident received massive press coverage, and Capetillo used it as an opportunity to attack conventional morality, with its rigid sex roles, and women's imprisonment within it ".

personal data
SURNAME	Capetillo, Luisa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Puerto Rican feminist and anarchist
DATE OF BIRTH	October 28, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH	Arecibo , Puerto Rico
DATE OF DEATH	October 10, 1922
Place of death	Río Piedras

[1] Short biography . Here the date of death is given as April 10, 1922

[2] See: Norma Valle Ferrer: Luisa Capetillo, pioneer Puerto Rican feminist . Quote: “Luisa Capetillo (1879-1922) was a pioneer in the struggle for women's and worker's rights. A feminist and an anarchist, she earned her living as a labor leader and journalist. She wrote brilliant theoretical vegetarianism, a daily regime of Swedish calisthenics, and was the first woman in the Caribbean to wear pants in public. Her life can be read as a dramatic novel, every day an intense ode to personal and political liberation ".

[3] About her ideas about love and living together, she wrote: “The fact that a woman loves a man and gives herself to him should not be construed as the man exercising his privilege over the woman. And simply because she gives herself to her companion doesn't mean she has authority over him. Free before they lived together, they loved each other freely; and having joined together freely, the man and woman should be autonomous in all their manifestations after they have sealed their union. "From: Luisa Capetillo: A Nation Of Women: An Early Feminist Speaks Out; Mi Opinion Sobre las libertades, derechos y deberes de la mujer .

[4] See: Robin Kadison Berson: Marching to a different drummer: unrecognized heroes of history . Quotation: "As a society shaped by conservative, deeply Catholic, rigidly patriarchal Spain, 19th-century Puerto Rico had little sympathy for rebels, religious nonconformists, or outspoken women. Luisa Capetillo was all three. An eloquent, inspiring labor leader and proponent of social justice, Capetillo offered her own life in total dedication to the principles of anarchism and women's rights. She was a highly educated woman, economically and intellectually independent, a single mother, a respected voice in the male-dominated union movement, a passionate advocate for women's control of their bodies and relationship, a rational evangelist for a truly radical Christian vision - a neglected, major voice of immediate, contemporary impact ”(page 56).

[5] Luisa Capetillo: Art / Agitation / Anarchy! ( Memento of the original from January 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . English, accessed April 14, 2013 @1@ 2

[6] Capetillo, Luisa - a biography . English, accessed April 14, 2013

[7] Author: Leslie Feinberg, February 4, 2007 . Bodies shackled and repressed . Quotation: “Cross-dressing Puerto Rican labor organizer Luisa Capetillo was arrested in Havana in July 1915 for wearing men's clothing.” (…) Historian Aurora Levins Morales concluded, “The incident received massive press coverage, and Capetillo used it as an opportunity to attack conventional morality, with its rigid sex roles, and women's imprisonment within it ".