28 Facts About Rosario Morales

Rosario Morales was a Puerto Rican author and poet.

Rosario Morales is best known for her book Getting Home Alive which she co-authored with her daughter Aurora Levins Morales in 1986.

Rosario Morales was significant within the Latina feminist movement and the Communist Party.

Rosario Morales was born in August 1930 to two immigrants from Naranjito, Puerto Rico, both from landholding families.

Rosario Morales's mother worked in a hospital laundry, and later in a garment factory.

Rosario Morales's father was a janitor and then an electrician.

Rosario Morales was raised Catholic, and, although the family was not very devout, Rosario was very firm in her religious beliefs and even considered becoming a nun early in her life, although this religious fervor diminished over time.

Rosario Morales grew up in El Barrio of New York City at a time when the Puerto Rican population was still very small.

The Morales family spoke Spanish at home until the children entered primary school.

Rosario Morales's father was very controlling and fought often with her mother during their childhood.

Rosario Morales's father was diagnosed with dementia soon after her parents returned to live in Puerto Rico.

Rosario Morales attended public school in New York City, which she cites as the time when English transitioned to being her primary language.

The family began to speak what Rosario Morales defines as Inglanol rather than Spanglish, because Spanglish is Spanish that uses English words, whereas they spoke English that incorporated Spanish words.

Rosario Morales had recently graduated and was trying to avoid the draft for the Korean War.

Rosario Morales and Dick's second child, Ricardo Manuel, was born in 1956.

Rosario Morales was an accomplished visual artist in multiple genres, an interest she shared with her son, Ricardo, who is a well-known activist artist.

Rosario Morales pursued her interests in visual art and women's crafts, and began studying anthropology on her own, and during summers at the University of Michigan.

Rosario Morales wanted to go to graduate school in anthropology, and was concerned about the role models available to her daughter in rural Puerto Rico, so they decided to leave.

Rosario Morales's Masters thesis was a critique of the racism of French anthropologist Claude Levi-Straus, entitled "Tropes Tipique," a satirical play on his famous work, Tristes Tropiques.

Rosario Morales loved New England and it became the place she felt most at home.

An artist and intellectual with wide-ranging interests, Rosario Morales studied botany, philosophy of science, feminist history and political writings, and fiber arts.

On March 23,2011, Rosario Morales died at 3:30 am.

Rosario Morales is survived by her husband, her sister Gloria, her three children and five grandchildren, including Minneapolis-based hip hop artist Manny Phesto.

Rosario Morales cites this as one of the reasons she became so deeply involved in the Communist Party: it gave her something new in which to put her faith and passion.

Rosario Morales fell in love with the philosophy she learned there.

In 1986, Rosario Morales published Getting Home Alive, a collection of writings and poems that she collaborated on with her daughter Aurora Levins Rosario Morales.

Rosario Morales stopped writing publicly and publishing before she died; she wanted to write because she had something poignant to say rather than because she thought of herself as a writer.

On March 23,2011 Rosario Morales succumbed to her multiple myeloma at home in Massachusetts.