ABSTRACT
This rhythmic monologue in two parts is a poetic imagining based on the life (and afterlife) of Puerto Rican labor leader, womanist, journalist, and iconoclast Luisa Capetillo, born October 28, 1879–died, April 10, 1922, Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Capetillo, a self-identified anarchist and revolutionized visionary, defied the patriarchal subjugation of any aspect of her personhood, from her attire to her writing, rejection of religion and marriage, and fearless leadership in labor movements, primarily in Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and New York City. This play, from the perspective of Capetillo in her afterlife, reveals the travesty of her erasure, beyond academia and Puerto Rico. This panoramic lyrical prose amplifies and fulfills, in part, a need for BIPOC and gender-fluid peoples to witness those who lived for justice and found triumph in persistence, who look and feel like them.
