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Female Firsts: Luisa Capetillo · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stuff
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I've Never told you, a production of iHeartRadio. And welcome
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: to another edition of Female First, which means we are
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: once again joined by the wondrous, the delightful Eves.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Welcome Eves.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: Thank you. I like that we're wondrous.
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: I know, I was thinking the same thing. I'm like,
• 0:32
  Speaker 4: I don't know if I've heard that use too often.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: There it is, he's giving fantasy novel. I like that. Well.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I was thinking about as we're moving into to Fall,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: and for me, follows my favorite season.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: It just has this kind of vibe to me.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: That feels kind of like wondrous. And I really like
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: the the atmosphere and the changing of the leave. So
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: it's been on my mind. Perhaps, how have you been good?
• 1:01
  Speaker 5: I'm thinking about fall, like you said, And I was
• 1:03
  Speaker 5: taking a hike the other day through this place that
• 1:05
  Speaker 5: really felt like a fairy land to me because there
• 1:08
  Speaker 5: was so much moss everywhere, like dew and just like
• 1:13
  Speaker 5: moisture dripping off of leaves, and I was just like,
• 1:15
  Speaker 5: I really think fairies would live here. It did feel
• 1:18
  Speaker 5: like a wondrous place, and it's like just enough greenery
• 1:21
  Speaker 5: and foliage, but at the same time, like there weren't
• 1:26
  Speaker 5: leaves on a lot of the trees, so it was
• 1:29
  Speaker 5: like this perfect harmony of like being able to see enough,
• 1:32
  Speaker 5: but also still it still felt like pretty lush. So yeah,
• 1:37
  Speaker 5: I like fall. I'm a summer I like springing summer.
• 1:41
  Speaker 5: But I'm like trying not to be my normal biased
• 1:44
  Speaker 5: self and be like, what are the parts of fall
• 1:46
  Speaker 5: that I actually like and can enjoy, because to me,
• 1:50
  Speaker 5: I go straight to it's getting colder.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: The days are getting shorter, which I don't like.
• 1:56
  Speaker 5: I like sunlight, so I'm trying to see what I
• 1:59
  Speaker 5: can like gather out of it that is positive.
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: I wonder if that's partly because we're in the South,
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: because I think the same thing, and fall is so
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: short that you don't get to see like the like
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: I lived in La j Georgia, which is in the mountains,
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: so right at the foot hills of the mountains, and
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: it does have a good fall peak, but it's like
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: been short because of global warming. It's been shorter and
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: shorter and shorter as I've grown up. But when it
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: was there for like a full month, it was gorgeous
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: red and yellows and the breeze and like less rain.
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: It was lovely to see, but like I wonder, because
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: we're in the South, it doesn't last as long, or
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: it seems to like if you blink it's gone, and
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: it feels like it lasts two weeks at most and
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: then like it's darkness and just dead trees everywhere.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: So it's like, uh, where did that go? As where?
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: Like summertime obviously again in the South, it'll seems to
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: last a whole lot longer than anything else.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
• 3:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I feel like I don't really know fall that
• 3:06
  Speaker 5: well because we don't get those like amazing colors in Atlanta.
• 3:11
  Speaker 5: I've seen them in other places. But I do think
• 3:15
  Speaker 5: too that that the idea of fall and all of
• 3:18
  Speaker 5: the different colors it does. I can see what you're
• 3:21
  Speaker 5: what you mean by the wondrous thing, too, Annie, because
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: when I think of fall, I think of children's books too,
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: Like I think of parents and children's books like taking
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: their kids to play in leaf piles and the kids
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: are wearing like what are they called galoshes, like the
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: rain boots. I don't know if that's the right word
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: for them, but there I feel like I never used
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: that word because I don't know fall will and our
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: climate actually isn't that rainy either, so yeah, I don't know.
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: I see it, and I plan on spending some time
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: in the northeast, so hopefully I do get to see
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: a little bit of the fall this year up there.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, oh, oh, yes, Well, I'm very excited for
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: this story used because I feel like this was a
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: first that opened a door to like an un amazing story,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Like it was not going it went all over the place.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: I wasn't expecting a lot of it. And it's also
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: something that Samantha and I have talked about on the
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: show about clothes and drama calls around clothes and women
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: wearing them. So who did you bring for us to
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: talk about today?
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: Us?
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: So today we're going.
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: To be talking about Luisa Capaccillo, and she is what
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: Adie's talking about. She's remembered as the first woman to
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: wear pants in Puerto Rico. That sounds like that is
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: not in any way that just scratches the surface of
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: everything that she did in her life. So it's not
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: like we're being reductionist by saying that. It's definitely one
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: thing that happen, but in her story. It's the thing
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: that gets the person the movie, you know what I mean,
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: Like it's that moment in their life that is like
• 5:06
  Speaker 5: indicative of all of the things that they've done in
• 5:08
  Speaker 5: their life. Who they are in their life. Is a
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: very symbolic part of her story, but it is in
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: no way the most important part of her story.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: Is really just really just it.
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: Expresses the type of persons she was and kind of
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: it was also kind of a practical thing for her too,
• 5:28
  Speaker 5: So that is what she's remembered as. She could also
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: be considered one of the earliest feminist writers in Puerto Rico,
• 5:36
  Speaker 5: and we'll get into that in her story.
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, as insignificant as it seems about the
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: pants the amount of conversations we've had on the show
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: alone in our books, like that's really fairly significant because
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: of the demonstrations and this is a revolt. This is
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: a protest that a lot of women did way back
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: when we talked about with the Bloomers, and then we
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: talked about it in our own and I think we
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: did an episode and we also did in our book
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: about pantsuits about how the government which just happened not
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: too long ago, Like in our lifetimes about how they
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: in the Congress. In Congress women decided to protest by
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: wearing pants suits, which was like unheard of. Like all
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: of these things that we talk about, it is such
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: an odd conversation and it seems so trivial, but at
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: the same time, it was fairly bigger than what we know,
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: and the whole implications of it was pretty big, and
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: it does kind of set a precedent about who these
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: people were and what they were trying to say, and
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: it often has a lot to do with women's rights
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: and feminism in itself.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: I love that, Yeah, I do too.
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: And also, we haven't really I don't think we've ever
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: talked about a Puerto Rican woman.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: On the show before.
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: I might be incorrect about that, but we definitely haven't
• 6:48
  Speaker 5: talked about a lot of them. So I'm excited that
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: we were able to talk about somebody from Puerto Rico
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: today because Puerto Rico and itself has its own rich history,
• 6:57
  Speaker 5: one that is still influx and that's still so many
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: people are talking about so thinking about how we're still
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: like and this was the eighteen hundreds to the early
• 7:08
  Speaker 5: nineteen hundreds that we were talking about people wearing pants,
• 7:11
  Speaker 5: and then in US Congress, we're talking about this in like.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: The nineteen nineties. So I think two.
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: I mean, obviously because of Vice President Kamala Harris and
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: everything that's happening right now in the US presidency, Like
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: there's so much friction and so much coagulation and so
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: much electricity around this idea of like women in politics
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: doing things. And like, I think one interesting thing about
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: what y'all talk about on Sminty and then what we
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: have talked about on female First is like being able
• 7:46
  Speaker 5: to see that from a more global perspective and you
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: start to like just be able to put into perspective better,
• 7:53
  Speaker 5: like what's happening in different places at the same time.
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: So we'll get to talk about that context too. With
• 8:00
  Speaker 5: Luisa Capaitillo's story.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: Yes, well, should we get into it.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: So Luisa was born on October twenty eighth, eighteen seventy nine,
• 8:10
  Speaker 5: and Attecibo, Puerto Rico. And at the time she's born,
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: Puerto Rico is under Spanish rule, but in eighteen ninety eight,
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: the US invaded Puerto Rico and Spain ceded Puerto Rico
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: to the United States. So her father, Luisa's father Luis
• 8:32
  Speaker 5: Capetillo was from Spain. He did various jobs, including ones
• 8:37
  Speaker 5: in agriculture and construction. And Luisa's mother was Margharita Proone
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: and she was a domestic worker from France, and Luisa
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: was their only child. And Luisa's parents they were really
• 8:50
  Speaker 5: influenced by like the aftermath of the French Revolution. Margherita
• 8:55
  Speaker 5: herself was influenced by the work of George sand who
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: was a woman writer who criticized marriage and like talks
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: about lots of other things. But Louise and Margarita never
• 9:10
  Speaker 5: got married, and.
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: Like in any other story, I wouldn't really.
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: Like it feels kind of odd to say that, but
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: it's because of this specific context, Luisa's context, and she
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: talks about marriage and her work and relationships between couples,
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: and also women's rights are part of the things that
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: Luisa talked about, which is why I have to just
• 9:31
  Speaker 5: add this disclaimer. That's why I'm saying that it's not
• 9:33
  Speaker 5: like I actually cared whether or not they're married or
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: like that's even that pertinent to the story beyond that point.
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: But Luisa's father taught Luisa to read and to write
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: and to do math, so she is she got kind
• 9:49
  Speaker 5: of an outside of the home education as well, but
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: inside of the home is where a lot of the
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: education was happening because her parents were introducing to her,
• 9:57
  Speaker 5: introducing Luisa to these works. She's exposed to the writings
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: of philosophers and anarchists, of people like Victor Hugo and
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: Emil Zola and John Stuart Mill. And she spoke with
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: her parents about workers' rights, religion, and anarcho syndicalism, which
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: is an anarchist philosophy that really advocates for workers taking
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: direct action for better conditions. It's like seeking to tear
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: down traditional organizations of authority and capitalism and organize these
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: mass unions and have civic and political life revolve around that.
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: And I am trying to imagine these conversations that she
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: was having with her parents, because I'm imagining this is
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: during the time of her adolescence, Like, I don't know
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: of any record of what those conversations were like. It's
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: just that in the sources I've seen from the scholars
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: and the historians who worked on uncovering her legacy have
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: said that she was a precocious child and that her parents,
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: because of their background, they came from Europe, and this
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: was in the eighteen hundreds. You know, the times that
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: they grew up in Spain and France were obviously very turbulent,
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: and so they had clearly some sort of social and
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: class consciousness coming over from Europe. And also I believe
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: they weren't wealthy, so I'm not sure if they were poor,
• 11:29
  Speaker 5: but they weren't wealthy. And they were also already thinking
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: about labor and thinking about their economics and their social status,
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: and they were migrants, so I guess in my mind
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: these are really big topics. And it seemed like Luisa
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: was pretty young. And I'm not saying that people who
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: are that age can't like internalize these things, but I
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: don't know how do y'all feel about that? Were these
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: are kinds of conversations you were having with like any
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: adult figures who were in your life, like in your
• 12:08
  Speaker 5: adolescent times, about like anarcho cynicalism, and like, I don't
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: know what do y'all think about that?
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: I would say, I am like a very I was
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: not at that level at all, but my family was
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: very political. My dad was a professor, so we would
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: like over the dinner table, have these debates isn't even
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: the right word, just like discussions about it. But of
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: course I was quite young, so I'm sure I don't
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: know how educated I sounded, or like how great the points.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: I was making were. But we were having like political.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Discussions when I was at least middle school, and my
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: older brother was way more into it than me, so
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: not the same level, but kind of.
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: No answer is just no, I'm like I would still
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: have to look up some of those words today.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: Oh, it's just being very honest.
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: We didn't talk about politics much, and because I come
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: from a very conservative family that wasn't highly educated, it
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: was mainly just of like, don't talk about it, talk
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: about Jesus only in the story.
• 13:18
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I could imagine, like just between the two of y'all,
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: that's a huge range on the spectrum of the kinds
• 13:25
  Speaker 5: of conversations that y'all were having when you were children.
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: And I just think about it because I try to
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: imagine the context of like someone like this who was
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: involved in organizing and who has a political consciousness across continents,
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: you know, and across a certain period of time, Like
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: how were they thinking when they were young, and like
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: what kinds of conversations did they have with the people
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: who were in their lives, whether they were peers or
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: they were.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: Like older than them.
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: So it's interesting to see the kinds of works that
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: she was reading and imagine those conversations, because we don't
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: have audio of those kinds versations, we don't have documentation
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: of them. So I think it's just something interesting to
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: ponder as we think about how Luisa Capetillo the organizer
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: came into being. At some point when Luisa was young,
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: her father left and didn't come back, and her mother
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: mostly raised her from then, and sometimes she even went
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: to work with her mom, and this is how she
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: met Monuel Ledesma. Manuel was the son of the leader
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: of the Unconditional Spanish Party, which was a loyalist conservative party,
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: and she had two children with Monuel in the late
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: eighteen nineties, and their names were Manuela and Gregorio. And
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: Manuel is of a higher class than Luisa is, and
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: there were of course these conceptions around gender and around relationships,
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: and Luisa was expected to care for her children, but
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: the children lived with Luisa's mother, while Louisa kind of
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: went back and forth between households and someone of Manuel's
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: stature he was higher class. He was in this kind
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: of upity family that was involved in politics, and he
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: wasn't supposed to mix with someone of the working class
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: like Luisa, especially with the kind of arrangement that they
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: had and their relationship ended, but he did keep supporting
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: the children financially, and Luisa also worked as a seamstress
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: to support her children. So one thing that I've seen
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: brought up in sources too, is about how the children
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: had to deal with the different, like kind of political
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: ideologies between the two of them, because Louisa was not
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: a loyalist in the Conservative Party. And I don't really
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: know how the children responded to that. I know that
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: they were pulled in different directions because of their different
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: ideologies and what they would have imagined for their futures.
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: But I am also curious like about, like in that
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: moment at the time, as they were growing up, how
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: they reconciled the information that they were getting from their parents,
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: because Manuel and Louisa weren't together, but Momuel seemed like
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: he did stick around for Manuela and Gregorio and was
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: still in their lives even beyond when they separated. But yeah,
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: Louisa starts to get into her organizing life. So she
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: starts writing her first articles for local newspapers. Around nineteen
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: oh four, she starts working in garment factory and she
• 17:01
  Speaker 5: goes to strikes and she becomes involved with the Free
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: Federation of Workers of Puerto Rico. And I'll call that
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: the FLT from here on because that remains in her story.
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: But the organization followed anarcho Synicolas principles, and Luisa also
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: joined the Tobacco Workers Union and she became a reader
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: or what was known as electora in a cigar factory
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: and she was paid to read to people while they worked.
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: Could you like that sounds like a great job? Like
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: I mean, just from my bias perspective, like showing up
• 17:42
  Speaker 5: and reading to people is amazing, but like honestly, practically
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: like it was really good because there were a lot.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: Of people who couldn't read.
• 17:51
  Speaker 5: And obviously this is a service that she like loves
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: doing and has clearly had a background through how her
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: parents raised her and her education that she got in
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: the home, and she wasn't just reading anything to them,
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: so she would read to them while they were she
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: got paid for it, but she would read things like
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: news and political theory, and so people's consciousnesses were raising
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: through the work that she was doing. She would be
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: seated on this raised platform, surrounded by these workers, and
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: she would start reading newspapers, and then she would also
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: read chapters from novels, so if there was she could
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: like serialize a novel over time and read a novel
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: to a person by reading chapters every time she was there.
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: So people are learning about labor organizing around the world.
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: They're learning philosophy while she's there, and they're also getting
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: to enjoy fictional narratives while they're working. So Luisa also
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: publishes articles in progressive publications like the flt's newspaper Union Operera,
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: and folks get familiar with her work as electora and
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: as a journalist. She participates in more agricultural strikes and
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: ramps up her organizing work, so people are listening to
• 19:14
  Speaker 5: what she's saying. They're rallying as she tries to bring
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: farmers together in factory workers together, and she's writing and
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: lecturing about workers' rights, about women's rights, and about collective liberation.
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: So in nineteen oh seven she published her first book
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: in SCIOs Libertarios and here is part of the beginning
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: of that book, education is the basis of happiness for
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: all people. Teach under the canopy of truth, tear off
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: the veil of ignorance, and show the true light of progress,
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: free from all rights and dogmas. Practice fellowship in order
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: to tighten the bonds that should unite humanity from one
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: end to another, regardless of race or belief. Ignorance is
• 19:57
  Speaker 5: the cause of the worst crimes. And in just this
• 20:00
  Speaker 5: is and that's the end of that quote. So in
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: that book she talks about the workers struggles and how
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: they're up against the greed and exploitation of these wealthy capitalists.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: She began traveling across Puerto Rico.
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: She was lecturing on behalf of the FLT, and she
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: was writing articles for labor papers, and she also edited
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: a publication called La Mujer which means the Woman. And
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: don't think any of the work that she edited for
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: that publication or that publication is available to read today,
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: but there is a lot of her other work that
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: you can read. In nineteen ten, she published her second book,
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: Humanity in the Future, and in that book, she advocates
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: for free love, she advocates for vegetarianism, health reform, education.
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: These are things that'll come up across her work as
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: her philosophy continues to expand and as she continues to organize.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: In nineteen eleven, she.
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: Published My Opinion about the Freedom's Rights and Duties of
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: the Woman, And some folks have considered that kind of
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: like the first feminist treatise published in Puerto Rico, but
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: it's definitely an early one. And she talks about sex work,
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: she talks about religion, and she talks about sexual oppression
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: and marriage, and she advocates for the comprehensive education of women.
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: And that same year, nineteen eleven, she has a child
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: with a pharmacist who happened to be married, and.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: That child's name.
• 21:45
  Speaker 5: Was Louise, and the pharmacist doesn't recognize Louis as his
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: child unfortunately, and Louise goes back to live with his
• 21:54
  Speaker 5: siblings and Louise's mom, and his situation is a little
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: different from Mamuela and Gregorio's because you know, their father
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: was in their life, but in this case, Luis's father
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: is not in his life.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: So he.
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: Forms a lot of his consciousness around Louisa alone, and
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: he gets to travel with her sometimes as well, but
• 22:18
  Speaker 5: he does spend time with his siblings and Luisa's mom.
• 22:22
  Speaker 5: So Luisa herself she believed that motherhood is important, but
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: that women's role should extend beyond the domestic sphere. So
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: she recognizes oh motherhood and how that plays a role
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: in how people develop their consciousnesses and how they're raised
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: and how society works. But she doesn't believe that women's
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: work should just stop right there. And she also advocated
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: for women's voting rights as part though of this larger
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: working class agenda. So a lot of other people in
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: Puerto Rico at the time were more so thinking about
• 23:05
  Speaker 5: women's voting rights going to educated women versus Luisa thought
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: about it more and fellow anarcho syndicalists who were in
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: alignment with her and her ideals, as this is something
• 23:20
  Speaker 5: that all women should, no matter the stature, should be
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: involved in. If we're going to use voting as a
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: means to power, then all women should have access to voting.
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: She started wearing pants too, so these helped her moves
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: around all the spatusem so she was traveling a lot,
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: she was going through fields, she was going through factory
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: so the pants probably just as I said earlier from
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: a practical standpoint, made a lot of sense for her
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: to wear, but it also may have helped her blend
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: in better with the men who were leaders in the FLT.
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: So there were a lot of men who were part
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: of these organizations, and she was one of the fewer
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: number of women who were leaders in the labor organizations,
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: and so this helped her kind of assimilarly in a way,
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: or be like less and more conspicuous at the same
• 24:19
  Speaker 5: time in an odd way, because she wasn't dressing like
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: other women, but at the same time she was like
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: blending in. So that's where the pants story starts. And
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: you can see pictures of her wearing these outfits too,
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: which is pretty cool. So she visited the US and
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: Cuba in nineteen twelve, and she went to New York,
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: she went to Tampa, Florida, and she went to Havana, Cuba,
• 24:47
  Speaker 5: and she was moving through these intellectual and political circles
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: and writing for local anarchists and labor papers in New York,
• 24:57
  Speaker 5: working as a journalist, and she was working as electora
• 25:01
  Speaker 5: in a cigar factory in Aybor City in Tampa, and
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: she began writing her last book while she was there
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: in ay Boar City in nineteen thirteen, and Abor City,
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: which is the neighborhood in Tampa, was a hub for
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: diverse anarchists and socialists. So it wasn't like she was
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: like one of a kind while she was there. There
• 25:19
  Speaker 5: were a lot of people from different places who were
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: involved in that manner of political ideology. So there were
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: also anarchists. There were also socialists who were there who
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: were involved in labor organizing. There were also other electorists
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: forgive me Spanish for those of y'all who speak Spanish.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: But yeah, who were there.
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: There were mostly men, and that was the case in
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: Puerto Rico as well, and that was the case here
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: in Tampa. So it was mostly men who did this job.
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: It was fewer women who did it. And so she
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: was introducing these feminist ideas to the ideas they were
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: bringing to the table. But she wasn't the only one
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: who It was not like something necessarily they had.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: Not heard before.
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: They might not have her her specific brand of like
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: how she was bringing her ideology as a suffragist into it.
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: But she she was in good company, so to say.
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: And by nineteen thirteen she published a second edition of
• 26:23
  Speaker 5: her nineteen eleven book My opinion. She continued doing her
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: organizing work, but by nineteen fifteen she had moved to
• 26:32
  Speaker 5: Cuba and she was working with the Anarchist Federation and
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: she helped sugarcane workers during a strike, and she supported
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: a manifesto that denounced the government for trying to suppress
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: labor uprisings. And on July twenty fourth, nineteen fifteen, in Havana, Cuba,
• 26:52
  Speaker 5: she was arrested for what they considered dressing like a
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: man in public, which meant that she was wearing a
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: jack get, a tie and a hat. So she was
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: back in Puerto Rico by nineteen sixteen, and that year
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: she published her fourth in her last book, Influencias de
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: las Adillas modern and Us. And there are plays, stories
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: and letters in this last book as well. So she
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: helped lead strikes, walkouts and protests now that she's back
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: here in Puerto Rico, and of course she gets pushed
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: back from authorities from the work that she was doing.
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: In nineteen eighteen, she was arrested in jail for what
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: they considered in citing a riot, and she was fined,
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: but her supporters raised the money and she got out
• 27:46
  Speaker 5: and from nineteen nineteen to nineteen twenty, she traveled between
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: the Caribbean and the US. She was running a boarding house,
• 27:54
  Speaker 5: and she was participating in political debates, and by nineteen
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: twenty one she was back in Puerto Rico though, so
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: she was campaigning for candidates for the Socialist Workers Party.
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: But at some point during all this moving around that
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: she was doing, she got tuberculosis and she was struggling
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: with her health and she died in Puerto Rico on
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: April tenth, nineteen twenty two. So she did a lot
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: in her life, even though she died when she was
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: relatively younger. But her organizing, you know, really crossed borders,
• 28:30
  Speaker 5: coming from the Caribbean to the United States. And also,
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: just like her upbringing, took place at a time when
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: a lot was changing in Puerto Rico. So I think
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: her story is very fascinating. And clearly she was also
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: a stylish person, so I appreciate that too.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Yes, she was those pictures listeners, look them up.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: She was fashion forward.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: She was fashion forward, but also yeah, practical. It just
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: made sense. There's so much I love about her story.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: She has a lot of great quotes, and you know,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: we love quotes over here, so also go look that
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: up listeners. Just a lot of interesting thoughts about religion
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: and anarchy that I thought was that was fascinating because
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: you know, we like talking about religion here. Yeah huh,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: but yeah, like you said, it's the perspective of this
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: is really useful because we are having so many of
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: these conversations still, but seeing it from her viewpoint, similar
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: things from her viewpoint, I think is incredibly valuable. And
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: also I kind of love she called her book My Opinion.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Like I know it's the longer title, but I like
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: that it's called my Opinion. I actual really appreciate that. Yeah, yeah,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: because it just feels so confident in a way. I guess,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: like because if you're getting the book, you're you're like saying,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: I want to get my opinion.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: It feels very right.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: She's going to influence you with the her thoughts and
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: the way she's thought about them and written about them.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: I love it, but not in an evangelizing way.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: No, no, no no, because.
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: It's like I have authority, but I'm still telling you
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: this is like from my particular viewpoint, so I'm not
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: trying to force this down your throat. I'm just saying
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: I have a lot of these thoughts and they have
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: great basis, and I've done a lot of work in
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: these areas, and i have something to say about it.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna publish it.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: Mm hmmm. I love it. I love it so much.
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: And just thinking about about the first conversation we were
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: having when we were talking about did you talk about
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: politics like this as a child?
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: And I was like, nah, so.
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: Her dut she was my age, she died around my age,
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: And looking back at what she did, I'm like, damn,
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: I'm behind.
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, this Samantha stop it just all the time.
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: But the fact that she was such a force and
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: such an influence on unionizing as well as labor organization,
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: that's huge in itself, because that's still a conversation and
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: a big need that's happening.
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: All around the world today.
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: And the fact that it's still something is contentious like
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: that is something that we do need to talk about,
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: especially when we're talking about Puerto Rico in itself. In
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: the history of Puerto Rico and the US is not pretty.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: And the fact that that's.
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: Still on the table and discussion and seeing what she
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: has done and what she has done to influence so
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: much in feminism and get unionization and all of that.
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: That's a lot, and that is a lot she's in
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: her short life that she has accomplished, and that's amazing
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: to see it. And I'm glad we've got those records
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: and also the pictures.
• 31:46
  Speaker 5: And also the pictures, and speaking of the records, like
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: shout out to all the people who translated her work
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: from Spanish to English, because if it weren't for those people,
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: then people like me, silly Americans who can only speak English,
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: would not be able to access her work without having
• 32:03
  Speaker 5: like somebody else to help translate. So to the translators
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: who translated her work and who translate everything else to
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: allow us to learn more about people, because I think
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: outside of Puerto Rico, I mean I think maybe even
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: in Puerto Rico it could like it's been helpful the
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: work that scholars have done to uplift her legacy, but
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: like outside of Puerto Rico, outside of the Caribbeans, like
• 32:27
  Speaker 5: the work that the scholars and historians have done to
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: uplift her legacy, which seemingly deserve to be and was
• 32:36
  Speaker 5: like covered as many other people we talk about on
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: Female First have been that the work that they were
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: able to do to uplift it has been really helpful.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Sure, yes, Yes, always appreciate translators who help us talk
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: about important topics around the world.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: And we always.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Appreciate you Eve for bringing people we might not have
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: heard of and giving these stories and all of this context.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much as always for being here.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: You're welcome, happy to be here, per usual.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: Yay, Where can the good listeners find you?
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: You can find me on the internet.
• 33:20
  Speaker 5: You can just go to Eves Jeffcote dot com and
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: then you can find all the other things from there.
• 33:25
  Speaker 5: My name is spelled yvees j E F F co
• 33:30
  Speaker 5: A T. If you want to hit me up on
• 33:32
  Speaker 5: Instagram you can. You can go to Not Apologizing. You
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: can also hear me on on Theme, which is a
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: podcast about black storytelling that I co host with Katie Mitchell,
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: and also on many many other episodes of Female First
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: here on Sminty.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Yes, so go check out all of that stuff if
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: you haven't already, listeners, and if you would like to
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: contact us, you can you can email stuffing your mom
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: stuff at I Heart can find us on Twitter at
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: most of podcast or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: I Never Told You. We're on YouTube, we have a
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: tea public store, and we have a book where, yes
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: we do talk about pantsuits and clothing you can get
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: wherever you get your book. Thanks, it's always to our
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: super producer Christina or executive producer May.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: And our contributor Joey.
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: Thank you and.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: Thanks to you for listening. Stuff I'll Never Told You
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: is a production by Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
• 34:21
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• 34:23
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