Clemente Soto Vélez
Clemente Soto Vélez | |
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Born | 1905 Puerto Rican Nationalist Party |
Movement | Puerto Rican Independence |
Part of a series on the |
Puerto Rican Nationalist Party |
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Clemente Soto Vélez (1905 – April 15, 1993) was a Puerto Rican
Early years
Soto Vélez was born in
Atalayismo
In 1928, Soto Vélez together with Margenat, Carrasquillo and joined by poets Graciany Miranda Archilla and together with Fernando González Alberti, Luis Hernández Aquino, Samuel Lugo, Juan Calderón Escobar and Antonio Cruz Nieves founded the group "El Atalaya de los Dioses" which turned into the literary movement known as "Atalayismo."
Nationalist
Soto Vélez became a militant member of the Nationalist Party which sought Puerto Rico's independence from U.S. colonial rule and served as Party organizer in the city of Caguas. Soto Vélez also contributed to "El Nacionalista", the political news organ of the Nationalist Party. He took part in an attempt to take over the capital building in San Juan in 1932, and in 1934 was arrested and jailed for helping to instigate and participating in a sugar workers' strike.
In 1935, four Nationalists were killed by the police under the command of Colonel E. Francis Riggs. The incident became known as the Río Piedras massacre. The following year in 1936, two members of the Cadets of the Republic, the Nationalist youth organization, Hirám Rosado and Elías Beauchamp assassinated Colonel Riggs. They were arrested and executed, without a trial, at police headquarters in San Juan.
On April 3, 1936, a Federal Grand Jury submitted accusations against Soto Vélez, Pedro Albizu Campos,
Soto Vélez was sentenced to seven years in prison which he served at the United States Federal Penitentiary at
Activist
Soto Vélez went to live in New York City and in 1943, joined the Communist Party. He was involved with Vito Marcantonio's political campaigns and the American Labor Party. He worked for the Spanish Grocer's Association, Inc., and later founded Puerto Rican Merchants Association, Inc. which he directed through the 1970s. Among the cultural organizations which he founded were the "Club Cultural del Bronx" (Bronx Cultural Club) and Casa Borinquen. He also served as the president of the Círculo de Escritores y Poetas Iberoamericanos (Circle of Ibero American Poets and Writers) and was a member of the Instituto de Puerto Rico en Nueva York (Puerto Rican Institute of New York). In 1950, he founded a magazine titled La Voz de Puerto Rico en Estados Unidos (The Voice of Puerto Rico in the United States).[1]
Written works by and about Clemente Soto Vélez
The following is a selection of Soto Vélez's written work:[9]
- Clemente Soto Vélez and Amanda Vélez Papers at Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY):[10]
- La Tierra Prometida by Clemente Soto Vélez (San Juan: Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, 1979)
- Obra poética by Clemente Soto Vélez (San Juan, Puerto Rico: Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, 1989)
- Simposio Clemente Soto Vélez (San Juan, Puerto Rico: Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña; 1. ed edition, 1990)
- Kaligrafiando: Conversaciones con Clemente Soto Vélez by Marithelma Costa and Alvin Joaquin Figueroa (Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico: La Editorial Universidad de Puerto Rico; 1. ed edition, January 1990)
- The Blood that Keeps Singing (a bilingual edition translated into Spanish by Martín Espada & Camilo Pérez-Bustillo) by Clemente Soto Vélez (Willimantic, CT: Curbstone Press, 2001)
Later years
Soto Vélez met Amanda Andrea Vélez, who became his wife. His wife was a political activist in Argentina and was a member of the Socialist Party of Argentina. She was involved in Soto Vélez's work and inspired him to write, while she promoted his work by organizing events on his behalf. In the 1980s, the couple moved to Puerto Rico. Soto Vélez died from emphysema in Puerto Rico on April 15, 1993.
In 1995 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan (also known as Loisaida), author Edgardo Vega Yunqué and actor-director Nelson Landrieu founded the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center (also known as the "CSV") to continue Clemente's legacy.[11]
See also
- List of Puerto Rican writers
- List of Puerto Ricans
- Puerto Rican literature
- Puerto Rican Nationalist Party Revolts of the 1950s
- Puerto Rican Nationalist Party
References
- ^ a b c d Guide to the Clemente Soto Vélez and Amanda Vélez Papers 1924-1996 Archived February 27, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ [Costa, Marithelma and Alvin Joaquín Figueroa, 1990. Kaligrafiando: conversaciones con Clemente Soto Vélez.]
- ^ "pr-secretfiles.net". Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 14 April 2017.
- ^ [*text of Title 18 Chapter 601 Immunity for witnesses, via findlaw.com]
- ^ "pr-secretfiles.net" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 November 2013. Retrieved 14 April 2017.
- ^ "The Nationalist Insurrection of 1950 (2011)". 13 October 2011. Retrieved 14 April 2017.
- ^ The Imprisonment of Men and Women Fighting Colonialism, 1930 - 1940 Retrieved December 9, 2009.
- ^ [Kanellos, Nicolás. 1989. Biographical Dictionary of Hispanic Literature in the United States: The Literature of Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans, and Other Hispanic Writers. CT: Greenwood.]
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-06-20. Retrieved 2009-05-16.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ "Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños". Archived from the original on 24 May 2005. Retrieved 14 April 2017.
- ^ "Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center". Retrieved 14 April 2017.
Further reading
- "War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America’s Colony"; Author: ISBN 978-1568585017.