Rosario Morales

Rosario Morales
Born	August 23, 1930 New York City, New York
Died	March 23, 2011
Ethnicity	Puerto Rican-American
Education	Hunter College Cornell University University of Puerto Rico University of Michigan University of Chicago
Children	Aurora Levins Morales, Ricardo Levins Morales, Alejandro Levins

Rosario Morales (August 23, 1930 – March 23, 2011) was a Puerto Rican author and poet. She is best known for her book Getting Home Alive which she co-authored with her daughter Aurora Levins Morales in 1986. She was also significant within the Latina feminist movement and the Communist Party. She describes her own complicated identity in her poem "I am what I am", “I am Puerto Rican I am U.S. American… I am Boricua as Boricuas come… I am naturalized Jewish American… I am what I am. Take it or leave me alone."

Rosario Morales was born in August 1930 to two immigrants from Naranjito, Puerto Rico, both from landholding families. Her mother worked in a hospital laundry, and later in a garment factory. Her father was a janitor and then an electrician. She 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. She grew up in El Barrio of New York City at a time when the Puerto Rican population was still very small. There were only 52,774 first generation Puerto Ricans in the US in 1930. This profoundly impacted her identity; she learned to identify with other minority groups such as her Eastern European Jewish neighbors. The Morales family spoke Spanish at home until the children entered primary school. Once in English-speaking public school, Rosario and her sister began to primarily speak English, because it was the language they used for the longest parts of their day.

Rosario's father was very controlling and fought often with her mother during their childhood. Due to this conflict, she says she would not describe her relationship with her parents at this point in her life as close. Her younger sister used to urge them to divorce after the fights. They did so briefly when Rosario was in her late 30s, but remarried soon after. Her father was diagnosed with dementia soon after her parents returned to live in Puerto Rico.

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