23 Facts About Nicholasa Mohr

Nicholasa Mohr was born on November 1,1938 and is one of the best known Nuyorican writers, born in the United States to Puerto Rican parents.

Nicholasa Mohr was raised in East Harlem at a time when the neighborhood was transforming from the Italian enclave it has been earlier in the century to the Puerto Rican and African American neighborhood it would be during Mohr's childhood.

Nicholasa Mohr lived in a four-bedroom apartment with eleven members of her family and extended family.

Nicholasa Mohr grew up in a bilingual household where she used Spanish with her parents and English with her siblings.

Nicholasa Mohr came to understand Spanish as a private language of her Puerto Rican heritage and English as a language of survival in the public sphere.

Nicholasa Mohr's father died when she was eight years old, leaving her mother with seven children, and Mohr as the only female and the youngest amongst her siblings.

Nicholasa Mohr's artistic talents and eagerness for learning flourished when she was a young student, but weren't always appreciated by her teachers, who saw her Puerto Rican heritage as a weakness.

Since Nicholasa Mohr's parents saw her schooling in America as a privilege, Nicholasa Mohr learned to adapt to her surroundings, while spending her free time volunteering in the library and reading, learning what she wasn't able to attain in school.

Nicholasa Mohr studied fashion illustration in high school and graduated in 1953, then went to study at the Art Students League, an art school located in New York.

Nicholasa Mohr had a successful career in graphic design and the fine arts, until she shifted to fiction writing in the early 1970s.

Nicholasa Mohr got her start in writing after a suggestion from her art agent.

Nicholasa Mohr went on to turn that 50-page piece into her first novel, Nilda, which would kickstart her writing career.

Nicholasa Mohr has written fifteen books total, not including reprinted or translated versions.

Nicholasa Mohr published her first book Nilda in 1973, which traces the life of a teenage Puerto Rican girl who confronts prejudices during the World War II era in New York.

Nicholasa Mohr was awarded the Jane Addams Children's Book Award.

In is this collection of works, Nicholasa Mohr writes poignantly about the immigrant experience of being "strangers in their own country" for Puerto Ricans who have been US citizens all of their life, yet still feel like immigrants.

In "The Wrong Lunch Line" Nicholasa Mohr tells the story of an interethnic childhood friendship between a Puerto Rican girl and a Jewish girl in a diverse New York public school.

Nicholasa Mohr's vivid writing about young characters while conveying deeper themes has made it well suited to being widely used in grade-school curricula.

Nicholasa Mohr uses animals to illustrate the mixing and blending of cultures frequent in Latin America.

Nicholasa Mohr is predominantly influenced by Puerto Rican culture and the migratory patterns of Puerto Ricans within the United States.

Nicholasa Mohr's brothers got brutally beaten and she was afraid to leave her house.

Nicholasa Mohr met her husband Irwin when she attended the New School for Social Research.

Nicholasa Mohr was a resident of Teaneck, New Jersey starting in the early 1970s.