Sandra María Esteves is one of the few female voices that was part of the well-known Nuyorican poetry movement during its early years in the 1970s in New York City.

Like many other members of the 1930s generation, she was known for defending teaching in Spanish, the vernacular of Puerto Ricans, at a time in the Island’s history when English was imposed as the main language in the public schools.

One of the most tireless defenders of independence for Puerto Rico under Spanish colonial rule, Sotero Figueroa was a mulatto artisan who, in addition to working as a typographer, was also a journalist, poet and playwright.

During the first half of the 20th century, the literary production of the Puerto Rican population in the United States, which lived mainly in New York City in those decades, was quite limited.

The only Latina woman to win the four most important prizes in the U.S. entertainment industry: an Oscar, a Grammy, an Emmy and the Antoinette Perry Award for excellence in theater.

In 2009, Sonia Sotomayor was nominated by President Barack Obama as associate justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Among the performing poets of the Nuyorican movement, a popularized coined term to identity a New York Puerto Rican, adopted by these writers, and which led to the founding of the Nuyorican Poets Café in 1975, Tato Laviera was one of the best known.

Part of Miguel Piñero’s literary prominence stems from his association with the Nuyorican poetic movement.

In the early 1970s, Nicholasa Mohr became one of the pioneers and most notable voices among a growing group of Puerto Rican writers born or raised in the United States.

Judith Ortiz Cofer was one of the leading women writers of the Puerto Rican experience in the United States.