Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory

This essay examines acclaimed Puerto Rican poet Julia de Burgos’s letters, newspaper articles, and poems for traces of New York City, the place where she resided during the last decade of her life and which she came to call her “second home.” While she was deeply committed to the cause of Puerto Rican independence, she also became increasingly concerned with the plight of Puerto Ricans and Latina/os on the mainland and particularly those who lived in New York City. Her writings from and about New York reveal an ambivalence toward the metropolis that is rooted in imperial history and in her position as artist, activist, woman, and migrant.