Juan Antonio Corretjer Term Paper

Juan Antonio Corretjer was born March 3, 1908 into a very political family. His father and uncles were involved in the Ciales Uprising in 1898, which protested the United States occupation of Puerto Rico. Corretjer was introduced to politics early in his life, when he accompanied his father and uncles to political rallies (Wikipedia). His political career continued in elementary school, when Corretjer joined the Literary Society of Jose Gautier Benitez, which was later renamed the Nationalist Youth ("Juan Antonio Correjter"). By eighth grade, Corretjer had more fully assimilated the beliefs of his family and was already demonstrating the beginnings of his career as a political activist; he organized a student protest against American authority in his town (Wikipedia). As result, Corretjer was expelled from school. In fact, Corretjer was not permitted to attend any schools in his municipality. Instead, he had to go to school in Vega Baja.

However, this expulsion did nothing to curb Corretjer's activist nature. In fact, he went to Cuba in 1985, where he joined an anti-Bastita group. Corretjer also traveled around the Carribean in search of support for Puerto Rican independence. After befriending Pedro Albizu Campos, a nationalist leader, Correjter became the Secretary General of the Nationalist Party. The Nationalist party:

Boldly proclaimed that U.S. domination of Puerto Rico was illegal and illegitimate -- and refused to recognize the colonial authorities, their courts or laws. They pointedly accused the U.S. Of causing the ruin and poverty of Puerto Rico's people. And they sought international recognition for Puerto Rico's right to independence. Most daring of all, they taught that Puerto Rican people had a right to wage armed struggle against the U.S. invaders ("Puerto Rico's Fight for Independence").

In fact, Correjter's political activities became increasingly controversial; he was jailed several times for his political beliefs.

However politically active Correjter was, he was also a poet and a journalist. In fact, he emerged as a poet at about the same time as he emerged as a political activist. At twelve, Corretjer wrote his first poem Canto a Ciales. By the time he was sixteen, Corretjer had published his first booklet of poems. By the time he was in his twenties, Corretjer was recognized as one of Puerto Rico's greatest poets. Like his first poem, his subsequent poems and essays centered around Puerto Rico's beauty and Corretjer's strong feelings of nationalism.

Although his poems share a common love of Puerto Rico, they differ in how they express that love. For example, in the poem Boricua en la luna, Corretjer speaks directly about the influence of America and Americanization on Puerto Rico. In this poem, Corretjer speaks of the son of Puerto Ricans, a man who was born in New York City, but whose heart is in Puerto Rico ("Boricua en la luna"). This man, who is transplanted, knows he is result of the sweat and tears of his father and grandfathers, feels that he is Puerto Rican, but knows of his homeland only in his dreams ("Boricua en la luna"). By demonstrating the heartbreak of a Puerto Rican that can not know his country, Corretjer highlights the fact that American occupation of Puerto Rico is damaging in two ways: first, Americans are changing the landscape of Puerto Rico, and, second, Americans are changing the landscape of Puerto Ricans. Interestingly enough, in this poem, Corretjer does not despise the parents that left Puerto Rico in search of opportunity; their reasons are understood, perhaps he even sympathizes with them. Instead, Corretjer speaks to the ignorance of non-Puerto Ricans that assume that New York can offer the same comforts as home.

In Oubua-moin, Corretjer speaks more directly of the violence perpetrated by outsiders to Puerto Rico. In doing this, Corretjer speaks of rivers whose currents run red with blood ("Oubua-moin"). However, it is interesting to see how Corretjer defines those natives of Puerto Rico. He is not a racist, and he acknowledges that it was not only those Native Americans that inhabited Puerto Rico at the time of Spanish invasion that deserve to call themselves…