Displays of medals, letters, photos, awards, certificates greet patrons as they enter the commemorative exhibition of the life of Antonia Pantoja, currently on view through August 30 at Hunter College’s Center for Puerto Rican Studies (CENTRO).
Pantoja’s archives feature the Presidential Medal of Freedom she received in 1996, and photos of her as she was welcomed to the award ceremony by then-President Bill Clinton.
An Afro Puerto Rican who migrated to New York City in the 1940s, Pantoja was an educator and social worker. She became the founder of the national educational advocacy program ASPIRA, which was originally designed to help Puerto Rican students stay in school (in 1974 ASPIRA and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund won a lawsuit against New York City’s Board of Education and were able to get New York City schools to provide bilingual education to students whose primary language is not English). Pantoja was also part of the establishment of Boricua College in 1974 and in 1986 she co-created the Puerto Rico-based small business economic assistance organization Producir with her life partner, Dr. Wilhelmina Perry.
Pantoja was the first Puerto Rican woman to ever receive a United States Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her activism remained vibrant at the grassroots level and although she was urged to run for a wider political office, she stayed very private about being a lesbian and preferred not to have that fact of her life exposed.
CENTRO’s Pantoja archives exhibition is the perfect example of how the research institute, which was established in 1973 to document the Puerto Rican experience in the United States, is working to help boost excitement around the importance of archiving community history.
CENTRO library manager Aníbal Arocho notes that Pantoja’s archives are one of many kept at the library. Researchers, media outlets, scholars, genealogists, and everyday people regularly make appointments to come use CENTRO’s resources. The library maintains microfilms, maps, books, records, and films that document the lives of Puerto Ricans who left the archipelago and made new lives in places like New York City, Connecticut, California, and Hawaii.
CENTRO is preserving the papers of Nuyorican scholar Juan Flores, husband and co-author along with Miriam Jiménez Román of “The Afro-Latin@ Reader: History & Culture in the U.S.” Papers from Piri Thomas, the author of “Down These Mean Streets” are available, as are the works from the East Village Nuyorican Poets Café co-founder, the poet and playwright Pedro Pietri; documents from the famed New York Public Librarian Pura Belpré can be read; and there are also clippings, photographs and reports from the early 20th century activist Jesús Colón; biographical documents, photos, newspapers clippings and film ad audio files related to the Young Lords Party, and more.
CENTRO has been preserving the history of individuals and community members for over 50 years, and regularly conducts events to help show people how they can preserve their family history—for themselves and for posterity.
Arocho encourages community members to visit the site and utilize the research documents they have available, but he also notes that CENTRO is a community hub for locals who just need access to a computer, printer, and other library services. Individuals who drop in and use CENTRO’s basic services are demonstrating another way of preserving the community’s influence.
The CENTRO library, reading room, and archives are open by appointment from Monday-Friday at the Hunter College Silberman School of Social Work in East Harlem. To arrange a time to visit, contact centro.library@hunter.cuny.edu or 212-396-7882.