The name Pura Belpre can be familiar to some readers because of the award established to honor Latino writers and illustrators of children’s books that present the Latino culture and experience. That is how I met this extraordinary woman whose legacy goes beyond having her name in a prestigious children’s award.
Pura Belpre was born in Puerto Rico in Cidra. Her year of birth is debated within the years 1899, 1901 and 1902. She lived in several towns of Puerto Rico as she grew up in the island. Some of her registered residences were Cayey, Arroyo Guayama and Saturce. In Santurce she graduated from Central High School. She even studied for a year in The University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus before traveling to New York.
When her sister got married, Belpre traveled to New York and decided not to return to the island. Here she had the opportunity to work as a librarian, a position that her sister didn’t accept because of her recent marriage. And she became the first Puerto Rican librarian in New York and probably of the whole nation and one of the first black personnel in the New York Public Library.
Belpre’s contribution in the New York Public Library is one that still today is still remembered. When assigned to work in the children’s room of the library, she discovered that none of the stories she had heard as a child in Puerto Rico were available for children to enjoy in this branch. As Victoria Nunez writes in her article “Remembering Pura Belpre’s Early Career at the 135th Street New York Public Library: Interracial Cooperation and Puerto Rican Settlement during Harlem Renaissance”,
Belpre, as a Puerto Rican who had grown up in a family with a storytelling tradition,
was aware of Puerto Rican folkloric tales and being in the environment of the library, she
could have imagined the presence and power of those stories for Puerto Rican and
non-Puerto Rican children alike. (56)
This statement reinforces what for so many years I have mentioned to students that take children’s Literature; traditional tales are the foundation of literary tradition and the inspiration for other literary genres such as Fantasy which I so much enjoy.
Belpre didn’t wait for an opportunity to appear, but created the opportunity for children gto enjoy these Puerto Rican stories. She took a storytelling course from Mary Gould Davis. At that time, the New York Public Library only permitted to narrate stories if they were already published. Belpre had mentioned that at that time only stories were told if it came from a book which was “a type of literacy based on published texts from earliest years. Whether library staff was aware or not of oral literacies, they sanctioned only written literacy.” (56)
Belpre then went on to write those oral stories that she had enjoyed as a child. It was in this storytelling course that she wrote “Perez and Martina” which was later published by Frederick Warne Company, the publisher of Beatrix Potter Peter Rabbit books.
Pura Belpre became the best published writer from Puerto Rico of this period in the United States. She went on to publish eight books. She was a writer, a folklorist and a puppeteer bringing Puerto Rico into the walls of the libraries of New York. She even made possible that the Three Kings Day was celebrated in these facilities.
It is important to remember Pura Belpre’s legacy. She demonstrated the importance of preserving traditional tales which unites people of different cultures, reaffirms one’s identify and expand the creative potential of all of us. If Belpre hadn’t published Martina the Cockroach story, many of us today would have lost an important piece of our oral tradition.
Bibliography
Gonzalez, L. (2008). The Storteller's Candle. San Francisco, CA: Children's Book Press.
Nunez, V. (Spring, 2009). Remembering Pura Belpre's Early Careerat the 135th Street New York Public Library: Interracial Cooperation and Puerto Rican Settlement during the Harlem Renaissance. Centro Journal, XXI(1), 53-77.
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