Myrna Vázquez (1935-1975) was a Puerto Rican screen, stage, radio, and television actress. She later became an influential community activist in Boston's South End.
Early life and career
She was born in Cidra, Puerto Rico, in 1935, one of seven siblings. Sometime around 1945 the family moved to
Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico
Santurce (, from the Basque '' Santurtzi'' which means Saint George) is a barrio or district in the municipality of San Juan. Its population in 2020 was 69,469. It is also the biggest and most populated of all the barrios in the capital city w ...
. As a child she showed a penchant for the performing arts, using a box for a platform and giving recitals for family and friends.
While still a teenager, she belonged to the comedy troupe of
Ramón Rivero
Ramón Rivero (May 29, 1909 – August 24, 1956) — known as Diplo — was a Puerto Rican comedian, actor, and composer. Rivero made his television debut in Puerto Rico in "La Taberna India" (The India Tavern), the first comedy/varie ...
(known as "Diplo"). Through her work there, she became friends with the composers
Sylvia Rexach
Sylvia Regina Rexach González (January 22, 1922 – October 20, 1961), was a Puerto Rican comedy scriptwriter, poet, singer and composer of boleros.
Early years
Rexach was born and raised in Santurce, Puerto Rico. Her parents were Julio E. ...
and Amaury Veray. She studied Theater at the
University of Puerto Rico
The University of Puerto Rico ( es, Universidad de Puerto Rico, UPR) is the main public university system in the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. It is a government-owned corporation with 11 campuses and approximately 58,000 students and 5,3 ...
, where she was active in the university theater, and went on to appear in many professional productions. At nineteen, she played Juanita in the
world premiere
A première, also spelled premiere, is the debut (first public presentation) of a play, film, dance, or musical composition.
A work will often have many premières: a world première (the first time it is shown anywhere in the world), its firs ...
of "
La Carreta
''La Carreta'' ( en, The Oxcart) is a 1953 play by Puerto Rican playwright René Marqués.Gil de La Madrid, Antonio.René Marqués, dramaturgo. ''Biografías de escritores puertorriqueños'', ''La Gran Enciclopedia Ilustrada del Proyecto Salón ...
" by
René Marqués
René Marqués (October 4, 1919 – March 22, 1979) was a Puerto Rican short story writer and playwright.
Early years
Marqués was born, raised and educated in the city of Arecibo. He developed an interest in writing at a young age and was ...
. She also appeared in "Mariana or el Alba" and "Los Soles Truncos" by Marqués; "Doce Paredes Negras" by Juan González-Bonilla; and "Tiempo Muerto" by
Manuel Méndez Ballester
Manuel Méndez Ballester (4 August 1909 – 24 January 2002), was a Puerto Rican writer who also worked in journalism, radio broadcasting, television and teaching.
Life and career
José Manuel Epifanio Méndez Ballester, better known as M ...
Luis Rafael Sánchez
Dr. Luis Rafael Sánchez, a.k.a. "Wico" Sánchez (November 17, 1936) is a Puerto Rican essayist, novelist, and short-story author who is widely considered one of the island's most outstanding contemporary playwrights. Possibly his best known play ...
, who wrote the part specifically for her.
In the 1960s, she co-founded the Teatro El Cemí with actors Marcos Betancourt,
Jacobo Morales
Jacobo Morales (born 12 November 1934) is a Puerto Rican actor, poet, writer, playwright, filmmaker, and auteur.Elín Ortiz. She founded the Cooperative Theater Arts (COOPARTE) in the early 1970s, and rescued a theater in Villa Palmeras for use by the organization. The Teatro COOPARTE offered theater arts classes to young people, and organized and hosted the first Festival of Latin American Theater. Vázquez served as its president for over four years. She also worked for some time as a drama teacher for the youth of the San José community in Río Piedras.
Vázquez suffered from a congenital heart condition,
aortic stenosis
Aortic stenosis (AS or AoS) is the narrowing of the exit of the left ventricle of the heart (where the aorta begins), such that problems result. It may occur at the aortic valve as well as above and below this level. It typically gets worse ov ...
, and had a series of surgeries starting in her twenties. Despite the medical danger, she had three sons with her husband, the actor Félix Monclova. One of her sons,
René Monclova
René Monclova (born c. 1959) is a Puerto Rican actor. Monclova has been popular both with theater and television audiences. Mainly a comedian, Monclova has also played serious characters, a fact that might escape the minds of many Puerto Ricans, ...
, became an actor; he was named for his godfather, René Marqués. Eugenio Monclova became a drama teacher and Hector Ivan Monclova a writer.
Activism
In 1974 her marriage ended. Vázquez moved to Boston in search of employment, leaving two of her sons with her mother and taking the third with her to Boston. According to her son, the move was necessary because Vázquez and Monclova had been blackballed for their support of
Puerto Rican independence
Throughout the history of Puerto Rico, its inhabitants have initiated several movements to obtain independence for the island, first from the Spanish Empire from 1493 to 1898 and since then from the United States.
A spectrum of pro- autonomy, ...
. While living in Boston's South End, she married Hector Colon Declet. She also joined a group of Latina community activists who, among other things, founded a
women's shelter
A women's shelter, also known as a women's refuge and battered women's shelter, is a place of temporary protection and support for women escaping domestic violence and intimate partner violence of all forms. The term is also frequently used to ...
. The original shelter was a brownstone in the South End named for another of the founders, Mary Lawson Foreman.
Though Vázquez did not live in Boston for long, she had a lasting influence on the South End community. She was a charismatic activist who helped found the Villa Victoria Center for the Arts, the art component of
Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción
Founded in 1967, Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción (IBA) is a community development corporation whose goal is to make sure the residents of Villa Victoria in South End, Boston keep long term control over their housing and neighborhood. They offer ma ...
(IBA Boston), and the annual Puerto Rican Festival.
Vázquez died of a heart condition in 1975. Soon afterwards, the group of activists with whom she had worked decided to name their organization in her honor. Today, Casa Myrna includes several other shelters in the South End and Dorchester neighborhoods, and operates a Transitional Housing Program, a Teen Parenting Program, a housing program for young parents and their children, and SafeLink, the state's first domestic violence hotline.
She is remembered on the
Boston Women's Heritage Trail
The Boston Women's Heritage Trail is a series of walking tours in Boston, Massachusetts, leading past sites important to Boston women's history. The tours wind through several neighborhoods, including the Back Bay and Beacon Hill, commemorating w ...
. Her hometown of Cidra celebrates Myrna Vázquez Week each February. A play written in her honor, ''Myrna Vázquez: Reconocete'' by Laura Figueroa and Fátima Seda-Barletta, was presented at the Cultural Center of Cidra in 1979. Another theatrical tribute, ''Son Corazón / Heartstrung'' by Rosa Luisa Márquez, premiered at the Jorge Hernández Cultural Center in Villa Victoria, Boston, in July 1995. Artist Antonio Martorell, who had known Vázquez, built some elaborate props for the play, including a marionette.