Jack Agüeros (September 2, 1934 – May 4, 2014) was an American community activist, poet, writer, and translator, and the former director of

El Museo del Barrio El Museo del Barrio, often known simply as El Museo (the museum), is a museum at 1230 Fifth Avenue in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is located near the northern end of Fifth Avenue's Museum Mile, immediately north of the Museum of the Cit ...

Early life

Jack Agüeros was born September 2, 1934, in New York City, and grew up in East Harlem. His parents, Carmen Diaz and Joaquin Agüeros, had immigrated separately from Puerto Rico to New York. Carmen worked for many years as a seamstress, while Joaquin was in the merchant marine and also worked in restaurants and factories. Agüeros attended Public School 72 (now the

Julia de Burgos Julia de Burgos García (February 17, 1914 – July 6, 1953) was a Puerto Rican poet. As an advocate of Puerto Rican independence, she served as Secretary General of the Daughters of Freedom, the women's branch of the Puerto Rican Nationa ...

Cultural Center) and then Benjamin Franklin High School, East Harlem's first public high school, from which he graduated in June 1952. After serving for four years in the United States Air Force as a guided missile instructor, he attended Brooklyn College on the

G.I. Bill The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, bu ...

, intending to become an engineer. Inspired by

Bernard Grebanier Bernard Grebanier (March 8, 1903 – March 10, 1977) was an American drama historian, critic, writer, theater director and poet, most notable for his studies of the works of William Shakespeare. He wrote music and 28 books. Career Grebanier was a ...

, a charismatic professor of English, and his lectures on

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

, Agüeros began writing plays and poems, and instead graduated with a B.A. in English literature and a minor in speech and theatre.

Activism

During the 1960s, Agüeros worked with a variety of community groups in New York. Starting out at the

Henry Street Settlement The Henry Street Settlement is a not-for-profit social service agency in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City that provides social services, arts programs and health care services to New Yorkers of all ages. It was founde ...

, he moved on to the

Office of Economic Opportunity The Office of Economic Opportunity was the agency responsible for administering most of the War on Poverty programs created as part of United States President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society legislative agenda. It was established in 1964 as an ...

, a federal agency created by President Lyndon Johnson to fight the

War on Poverty The war on poverty is the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a national ...

, before becoming the deputy director of the Puerto Rican Community Development Project (PRCDP), the nation's first Puerto Rican anti-poverty organization. After resigning from the PRCDP in early 1968, Agüeros was appointed in April as deputy commissioner of New York City's Community Development Agency (CDA), created by Mayor John Lindsay. As deputy commissioner of the CDA, he was the highest ranking Puerto Rican in the City's administration, and in 1968 staged a five-day hunger strike to protest the lack of Puerto Ricans in City government. Agüeros went on to be a member of the first cohort of National Urban Fellows, working as an advisor to the mayor of Cleveland and earning a M.A. in Urban Studies from Occidental College. He returned to New York and in 1970, became director of Mobilization For Youth, an organization located in the Lower East Side that provided job training and placement, social services, and special educational programming.

Early writing

Jack Agüeros wrote his first poems and plays while still a student at Brooklyn College, receiving his first literary awards there. He continued to write while working as a community activist in the 1960s and early 1970s. Among the highlights from this period are the script for "They Can't Even Read Spanish," a half-hour play about Puerto Rican life in New York that aired on WNBC TV Channel 4 on Saturday, May 8, 1971. The script is now preserved at the Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños at Hunter College. Agüeros also wrote a script for ''

Sesame Street ''Sesame Street'' is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop until June 2000) ...

'', "No Matter What Your Language". The song by that name first appeared on the show in its third season (1971–1972). In the song, which has since been featured in a number of episodes, a Spanish speaker teaches an English speaker that, if they take the time, anyone can learn a new language. Agüeros was a member of the National Board for Bilingual Programming for Sesame Street, which received a portion of the show's budget to produce Spanish-language content, and was quoted at the time as being dissatisfied with the show's attempts at bilingualism. Agüeros's essay "Halfway to Dick and Jane", about his childhood in East Harlem, was included in ''The Immigrant Experience: The Anguish of Becoming American'', a collection published in 1971 by the Dial Press that also featured contributions from

Czesław Miłosz Czesław Miłosz (, also , ; 30 June 1911 – 14 August 2004) was a Polish-American poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat. Regarded as one of the great poets of the 20th century, he won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature. In its citation, ...

and

Mario Puzo Mario Francis Puzo (; ; October 15, 1920 – July 2, 1999) was an American author, screenwriter, and journalist. He is known for his crime novels about the Italian-American Mafia and Sicilian Mafia, most notably '' The Godfather'' (1969), whi ...

. In his ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' review of ''The Immigrant Experience'',

Gay Talese Gaetano "Gay" Talese (; born February 7, 1932) is an American writer. As a journalist for ''The New York Times'' and ''Esquire'' magazine during the 1960s, Talese helped to define contemporary literary journalism and is considered, along with ...

praised Agüeros's contribution, writing "In this book is the first published work of Jack Agueros ic impressively describing Puerto Rican homelife in East Harlem." Agüeros maintained an active interest in theatre, reviewing several plays for the ''

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the cr ...

''. (He has also written for El Diario-La Prensa, Soho News, and

New York Newsday ''New York Newsday'' was an American daily newspaper that primarily served New York City and was sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The paper, established in 1985, was a New York City-specific offshoot of '' Newsday'', a Long Island ...

.) Two of Agüeros's poems were included in one of the first anthologies of Puerto Rican literature, ''Borinquen'', edited by Maria Teresa Babin and Stan Steiner, which was published by

Knopf Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers in ...

in December 1974. The two poems, "Canción del Tecato" and "El Apatético", are both in Spanish and appear in the section "Where am I at? The Youth," which also includes

Pedro Pietri Pedro Pietri (March 21, 1944 – March 3, 2004) was a Nuyorican poet and playwright and one of the co-founders of the Nuyorican Movement. He was considered by some as the poet laureate of the Nuyorican Movement. Early years Pietri was born i ...

's well-known poem "Puerto Rican Obituary". Both poems had originally been published in a literary journal, The Rican (based in Chicago, Illinois) in 1971, and both were later included in Agüeros's first book, ''Correspondence Between the Stonehaulers''. Agüeros also published two children's stories in '' Nuestro'', the first national Latino magazine, which was launched in 1977. The first, "The Magic Maraca", appeared in English and in Spanish in the December 1977 issue and was illustrated by Agüeros's one-time neighbour and friend, the artist

Robert Zakanitch Robert Rahway Zakanitch (born 1935) is an American painter and was one of the founders of the Pattern and Decoration movement. His work is held in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American ...

. The second, "Cheo Y Los Reyes Magos" ("Cheo and the Three Kings"), written in English, was included in the December 1978 issue. His children's story written around the same time, ''Kari & the Ice Cream Cone'', was later turned into a play co-written with David Smith, and produced at Monroe Community College Theatre in Rochester, NY, and at Eastern Connecticut State University Theatre, Willimantic, CT, in 1988 and 1994 respectively.

Cayman Gallery and El Museo Del Barrio

On June 10, 1975, the Friends of Puerto Rico, a non-profit organization founded and incorporated in 1956, opened the Cayman Gallery in a

SoHo Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develo ...

loft at 381 West Broadway, with Jack Agüeros as its first director. The Cayman Gallery was one of the first galleries dedicated to Puerto Rican and Latin American art in New York City. In July 1977, Agüeros was appointed director of

by the Museo's Board of Trustees. That fall, he negotiated with Boys Harbor, a non-profit youth services agency, to relocate El Museo from its home on Third Avenue to its present location: the main floor of the Heckscher Building, a multi-tenant, city-owned property at 1230 Fifth Avenue, between 104th and 105th Streets. In January 1978, Agüeros began El Museo's tradition of organizing a Three Kings Day Parade to celebrate the Epiphany. The Parade, held annually on January 6, includes live animals (including camels), school groups, and props and costumes, such as paper-mache figures of the Three Kings, made by artists. During his tenure, Agüeros implemented a series of capital improvements and gallery expansions, and helped build El Museo's permanent collection. In 1979, he co-founded the annual Museum Mile Festival on Fifth Avenue with ten major institutions, including

The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, The Museum of the City of New York, and

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

. He also articulated the evolution of El Museo to an institution with a pan-Latin American mission, telling an interviewer in 1978: "Our focus is no longer limited to Puerto Ricans. We are too culturally rich to force ourselves into ghettoes of narrow nationalism. El Museo now wants to embody the culture of all of Latin America. New York is the fourth or fifth largest Spanish speaking city in the world, with people from every Spanish speaking country, and El Museo must reflect everything that is Latino. We must look upon Latin America as our Indian ancestors did. They did not see artificial boundaries dividing nations. They saw an open world where they were free to travel from one place to another, pursuing their livelihood and mixing their culture." Agüeros served as director of El Museo until March 14, 1986.

Later writing

After leaving the Museo, Agüeros's poems and short stories began to appear more regularly in literary magazines. For example, his poem "Sonnet After Columbus II" appeared in The Portable Lower East Side (Volume Six, Number One) in 1989 and he was a regular contributor to ''Hanging Loose'', a magazine published three times a year by Hanging Loose Press. Two of his sonnets, "For Maddog" and "For Willie Classen", appeared in ''Hanging Loose'' 55, while "Sonnet For The Bicycle Rider's Leg", "Sonnet: The History Of Puerto Rico", and "Sonnet For Alejandro Roman, Remarkable Rider" all appeared in issue 64. The poems for Maddog and for Willie Classen are typical of Agüeros's use of a classical form to pay tribute to unusual poetic subjects: in the case of Maddog, a 19-year-old with (already) a long criminal record, and in the case of Classen, a boxer who died a few days after a fight at Madison Square Garden in November 1979. His poems also occasionally appeared in national magazines: for example, "Sonnet on the Location of Hell" was published in the April 1996 issue of ''

the Progressive ''The Progressive'' is a left-leaning American magazine and website covering politics and culture. Founded in 1909 by U.S. senator Robert M. La Follette Sr. and co-edited with his wife Belle Case La Follette, it was originally called ''La Follett ...

''. In 1991, Agüeros's first collection of poems, ''Correspondence Between Stonehaulers'', was published by Hanging Loose Press. This was followed by ''Sonnets from the Puerto Rican'' (a play on Elizabeth Barrett Browning's famous ''

Sonnets from the Portuguese ''Sonnets from the Portuguese'', written ca. 1845–1846 and published first in 1850, is a collection of 44 love sonnets written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The collection was acclaimed and popular during the poet's lifetime and it remain ...

'') and ''Lord, Is This a Psalm?'', which were also published by Hanging Loose in 1996 and 2002 respectively. In 1996, Curbstone Press published Agüeros's ''Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of

'', the first book to collect all of the poems by the woman widely considered to be Puerto Rico's greatest poet and to present them in both Spanish and English. In his introduction to the book, Agüeros recounts seeing de Burgos twice on the streets of East Harlem in the 1950s and having a hard time believing that she was Puerto Rico's most famous poet, as one of his friends told him. He then mostly forgot about her until years later, as an adjunct professor at

Touro College Touro University is a private Jewish university system headquartered in New York City, with branches throughout the United States as well as one each in Germany, Israel and Russia. It was founded by Bernard Lander in 1971 and named for Isaac ...

teaching English as a second language and public speaking, " e day I asked if they is students, mostly Puerto Rican womenhad ever heard of Julia de Burgos and to my surprise nearly every student had. Moreover, they repeated the 'Puerto Rico's greatest poet' line. I decided to find some poems by Julia de Burgos and translate them into English for my students to recite. Ever since I have been in her custody." ''Dominoes and Other Stories from the Puerto Rican'', a collection of short stories, was published by Curbstone Press in 1993. Later short stories appeared individually, including "i always wanted to be an old man" in ''Hanging Loose'' 72 (Hanging Loose Press) in 1998 and "He is Shorter...A Story" in Prosodia (published by the

New College of California New College of California was a college founded in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1971 by former Gonzaga University President John Leary. It ceased operations in early 2008. New College's main campus was housed in several buildings in the Mission ...

, San Francisco) in 1999. An autobiographical essay on Agüeros's love of bread, "Beyond the Crust", appeared in ''Daily Fare: Essays from the Multicultural Experience'', an anthology that appeared in 1993. "Johnny United", a story centered on a

stickball Stickball is a street game similar to baseball, usually formed as a pick-up game played in large cities in the Northeastern United States, especially New York City and Philadelphia. The equipment consists of a broom handle and a rubber ball, ...

game in East Harlem, was included in ''Growing Up Puerto Rican'', another anthology published in 1997 that also featured contributions from Abraham Rodriguez,

Piri Thomas Piri Thomas (born Juan Pedro Tomas; September 30, 1928 – October 17, 2011) was a Puerto Rican- Cuban writer and poet whose memoir ''Down These Mean Streets'' became a best-seller. Early years Thomas was born to a Puerto Rican mother and Cuba ...

, Edwin Torres, and Ed Vega among others. In parallel, Agüeros wrote plays, several of which ran off Broadway. ''Awoke One'' was produced at the Ensemble Studio Theatre in 1992; ''The Sea of Chairs'' was produced by the Medicine Show Theatre Ensemble in 1993; and ''Love Thy Neighbor'' was produced at HERE Theatre in 1994. ''Dream Star Café'' ran at

Theater for the New City Theater for the New City, founded in 1971 and known familiarly as "TNC", is one of New York City's leading off-off-Broadway theaters, known for radical political plays and community commitment. Productions at TNC have won 43 Obie Awards and the P ...

from January 31 to February 24, 2002. He also translated plays; for example, his English translation of Alberto Adellach's ''Sabina and Lucrecia'' was performed by the

Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre The Puerto Rican Traveling Theater is a theater company based at the 47th Street Theater in New York City. It was founded as El Nuevo Círculo Dramatico (The New Drama Circuit) by Míriam Colón and Roberto Rodríguez. It was one of the first Pu ...

in spring 1991.

Awards and legacy

In 1973, Agüeros won a Council on Interracial Books for Children (CIBC) literary award in what was the CIBC's fifth annual contest. Founded in 1965, one of the CIBC's goals was to promote a literature for children that better reflects the realities of a multicultural society. Agüeros's play ''The News from Puerto Rico'' won the McDonald's Latino Dramatist Competition in 1989. In April 2012, Agüeros was the recipient of the Asan World Prize for Poetry. In summer 2012, Agüeros's papers were donated to

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, where they are housed in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Personal life and death

Agüeros married three times and had three children and five grandchildren. Agüeros was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in December 2004, and died from related complications at his home in Manhattan on May 4, 2014, at the age of 79.González, David (2014-05-06). "Jack Agüeros, 79, a Champion of El Barrio, Dies." ''The New York Times''
/ref> His brain was donated to the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain at

Columbia University Medical Center NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center (NYP/CUIMC), also known as the Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC), is an academic medical center and the largest campus of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. It includes C ...

Publications

Short stories * ''Dominoes and Other Stories from the Puerto Rican'' (Curbstone Press, 1993) Poems * ''Correspondence Between Stonehaulers'' (Hanging Loose Press, 1991) * ''Sonnets from the Puerto Rican'' (Hanging Loose Press, 1996) * ''Lord, Is This a Psalm?'' (Hanging Loose Press, 2002) Translations * ''Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of

'' (Curbstone Press, 1996) * ''Come, Come-My Boiling Blood: The Complete Poems of

José Martí José Julián Martí Pérez (; January 28, 1853 – May 19, 1895) was a Cuban nationalist, poet, philosopher, essayist, journalist, translator, professor, and publisher, who is considered a Cuban national hero because of his role in the libera ...

'' ''(unfinished and unpublished)'' Contributions to anthologies * ''Borinquen: An Anthology of Puerto Rican Literature'', edited by Maria Teresa Babin and Stan Steiner (

, 1974) * ''The Immigrant Experience: The Anguish of Becoming American'', edited by Thomas Wheeler ( Dial Press, 1971) * ''Daily Fare: Essays from the Multicultural Experience'', edited by Kathleen Aguero (University of Georgia Press, 1992) * ''Men of Our Time: An Anthology of Male Poetry in Contemporary America'', edited by Fred Moramarco and Al Zolynas (University of Georgia Press, 1992) * ''Currents from the Dancing River: Contemporary Latino Writing'', edited by Ray González (

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Harcourt () was an American publishing firm with a long history of publishing fiction and nonfiction for adults and children. The company was last based in San Diego, California, with editorial/sales/marketing/rights offices in New York City a ...

, 1994) * ''Boricuas: Influential Puerto Rican Writings'', edited by Roberto Santiago ( Ballantine Books, 1995) * ''Growing Up Puerto Rican'', edited by Joy L. De Jesús (

William Morrow and Company William Morrow and Company is an American publishing company founded by William Morrow in 1926. The company was acquired by Scott Foresman in 1967, sold to Hearst Corporation in 1981, and sold to News Corporation (now News Corp) in 1999. ...

, 1997) * ''Hispanic New York: A Sourcebook'', edited by Claudio Iván Remeseira (

Columbia University Press Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by Jennifer Crewe (2014–present) and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fiel ...

, 2010) * ''Sunken Garden Poetry, 1992-2011'', edited by Brad Davis (

Wesleyan University Press Wesleyan University Press is a university press that is part of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. The press is currently directed by Suzanna Tamminen, a published poet and essayist. History and overview Founded (in its present form ...

, 2012)

Plays

* ''Dreamstar Café'' * ''The Sea of Chairs'' * ''The News from Puerto Rico'' * ''No More Flat World'' * ''House Warmer'' * ''Awoke One'' * ''They Can't Even Read Spanish'' * ''The New York Cycle'' * ''Blue Rings'' * ''Dio'' * ''Men More'' * ''Bueno Pepo'' * ''In Sight'' * ''Alcatraz and Jaguarox'' * ''Kari and the Ice-Cream Cone''

References

External links

Author website

Biography
at poets.org

by

Martín Espada Martín Espada (born 1957) is a Puerto Rican-American poet, and a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he teaches poetry. Puerto Rico has frequently been featured as a theme in his poems. Life and career Espada was born ...

Jack Agüeros Papers, 1914-2012
at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University, New York, NY {{DEFAULTSORT:Agueros, Jack 1934 births 2014 deaths 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American poets 20th-century short story writers American male dramatists and playwrights American male poets American male short story writers American short story writers Brooklyn College alumni Deaths from Alzheimer's disease Hispanic and Latino American short story writers Deaths from dementia in New York (state) People from East Harlem Poets from New York (state) Puerto Rican male writers Puerto Rican poets Writers from Manhattan