Twelve murals highlighting the legacy of Puerto Rican women

This article is a collaboration between Platea, Todas and 9Millones on the occasion of International Women's Day (8M).

Fighters, tenacious, rebels, visionaries. Puerto Rico’s streets have murals that are much more than mere snapshots of a moment. They are colorful expressions of art that tell the story of women and dissidents who defied conventions and raised their voices with courage and determination, leaving a legacy that transcends time and space.

To commemorate International Women's Day, we compiled a road trip through some of the most emblematic murals that honor the legacy of extraordinary Puerto Rican women. On this journey, we are joined by the artists that make up Colectivo Moriviví and Taller Malaquita, as well as artists Antonio Martorell and Rafael “Rafique” Vega, who expressed how each brushstroke reflects a story that intertwines with many others and could inspire you on your own journey.

First stop: Santurce

Our route begins on Diez de Andino Street in Villa Palmeras and its surroundings, where murals were painted in honor of the cangrejeras Carmen Belén Richardson, Sylvia del Villard and Mamá Toña, three women who were fundamental in the history of San Mateo de Cangrejos, the name of the Maroon community that gave rise to the art capital known today as Santurce.  

The works were conceived through the project Resonancias Cangrejeras, which was part of the artist residency program of Universidad del Sagrado Corazón (USC) with the support of the Villa Palmeras Historical Society and others.

Taller Malaquita, a multidisciplinary workshop comprised mainly of women and dissidents, created the murals together with three USC students (Alondra Jiménez Rivera, Gabriela Rivera Rodríguez and Daniela Arocho González), giving them the opportunity to design and work on the pieces. “We wanted to highlight important Black cangrejera women,” Rosenda Alvarez Faro, co-founder and co-director of Taller Malaquita, told Platea. “It's a project in which the community is involved.”

Alvarez Faro noted that Richardson “was the first Black woman in Puerto Rican television,” an actress and comedian who began her career at the age of 9 in a radio soap opera. Throughout her career, she not only recorded telenovelas in Puerto Rico, but also in Mexico and other countries. She also worked in theater and television, participating in programs such as “Black Power” and “Sin ton ni son”.

On the other hand, Del Villard “is better known abroad than here,” said Alvarez Faro. Del Villard’s interest in Africa awakened while studying in New York, something that brought her back to her African roots in Nigeria. In addition to reciting poems and acting, she worked as a dancer and choreographer in plays such as “Valley Without Echo,” “Witches of Salem” and “The Boyfriend” in the United States. In Puerto Rico, she founded the Afro-Boricua Theater El Coquí.

Meanwhile, Josefa Antonia Pesante, known as Mamá Toña, was born in Añasco and inherited her last name from the family that enslaved her, but later moved to San Mateo de Cangrejos and made it her home. “She lived confined and enslaved until she managed to buy her freedom,” Alvarez Faro recounted. “She managed to buy her son's freedom at the baptismal font,” she added, regarding Julián Pesante, one of those in charge of developing the Dos Hermanos Bridge and other architectural projects. Julián Pesante is also the name of the street where the mural was made.

Mamá Toña learned to read and write from one of the Pesante daughters and expressed in letters the sadness of being a slave. This is why she sewed her clothes in a Spanish style and took a photo of herself, which inspired the mural, “so that future generations would know that she died free,” the artist said.

A fourth mural is being developed in honor of another exceptional cangrejera: Fe Cortijo, singer and conga player, niece of composer Rafael Cortijo, with whom she performed in multiple musical groups.

Second stop: Río Piedras

From Santurce we go to Paseo de Diego, in Río Piedras, where there are two murals you should know about. The first one is in honor of student Antonia Martínez Lagares, who was killed by the police during the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) strike of 1970.

Her name became a reminder of police violence against students and inspired songs recorded by Roy Brown and Andrés Jiménez. The mural was painted by Kroniko Arte, a graphic production brand founded by artist Luis “Güillo” Cruz Martes, as part of the Paseo del Arte initiative in October 2023.

The second mural is in honor of the Women's National Basketball Team, which made history by qualifying for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. This mural shows players Pamela Rosado, Jazmon Gwathmey, Jennifer O'Neill, Michelle González and Isalys Quiñones, the quintet that represented us in Tokyo.

“These players represent a generational diversity of what makes up the team, of the reinforcements that arrive and how they come together to work with the Puerto Rican players,” artist Elizabeth Barreto, creator of the mural, told Todas. For her, this mural is not only a celebration of women's basketball, but a conversation starter about the “inequality they face” compared to their male counterparts.

Throughout her career, Barreto has used art as a tool of resistance, questioning the establishment from her feminized and queer gaze. She keeps an altar of the dead in honor of femicide victims in Puerto Rico entitled “Del dolor y la rabia nace resistencia y rebeldía” (From pain and rage comes resistance and rebellion), which is part of the permanent collection at the Museo de las Américas.

Third stop: Loíza

From San Juan, we move to Loíza, a name derived from Yuisa, the only known Taino cacique woman on the island of Puerto Rico. In the Tocones sector, Colectivo Moriviví, led by women and activists, developed with the community a mural entitled “Trenzando legado: Homenaje a nuestras mujeres” (Braiding legacies: Homage to our women). The mural highlights the path of three women leaders: Alicia Carrasquillo, Magali Velázquez and Dalia Ortiz, who stood out for offering educational services, workshops and assistance to the community.

This mural emerged from a braiding workshop offered by the collective during the pandemic. “We liked the theme so much that we wanted to work it into a mural,” Raysa Rodríguez García, co-founder and co-director of Colectivo Moriviví, told Platea.

The community piece also references other “Black women who have contributed in different spaces and trenches,” whose names are written on their hair, and the girls who are part of the community.

“The mural talks about how the art of braiding metaphorically is the transfer of legacy, knowledge or know-how from generation to generation. That is why the adult women are braiding the girls,” explained Rodríguez García.

The flamboyan tree in the mural represents the tree next to the ball park that serves as the Tocones community center. Meanwhile, the ceiba flowers in the mural reference the legacy of Adolfina Villanueva, “a woman who fought for her home in Loíza and was brutally murdered,” said the artist. On the land where Adolfina's house used to be, they planted a ceiba tree, “which is a protected tree and by law no one is supposed to cut it down.” This was a way to protect the community and to continue the legacy of the fight against displacement.

From Tocones, we move to the Miguel Fuentes Pinet Stadium, the home of the Las Cocoteras and Los Cocoteros de Loíza teams. This park was revitalized in 2019 by the Monument Art project, directed by visual artist Celso González. In this park, in addition to a series of murals that highlight the history of Loíza, there is a particular one that highlights the importance of women in sports titled La Cocotera.

The author of the mural is Luis Alejandro Rodríguez (akalejrandroart) and he says that his work highlights “the importance of women and their abilities”. It is a loiceña girl with the uniform of her town's team that highlights the name of the coconut palm.

Fourth stop: Caguas

And from Loíza we arrive at El Valle del Turabo, where a mural serves as a legacy and altar to artist and poet Amara, “a young black trans woman activist, who was born in Aguas Buenas and died from problematic substance use and other preventable circumstances,” Sora Ferri, who is one of the core members of EspicyNipples, a transfeminist network that tells stories of TILQAPBG+ lives, told Todas. This is the LGBTQIA+ collective's inverted acronym, something that is part of their activism.

It was this network that spawned the Amara Project, an “artistic endeavor that works to document our lives through the lens of mourning, healing and joy, with a focus on substance use and harm reduction,” said Ferri. The project was inspired by Amara, which gives visibility to the lives of trans people of African descent. The mural was established in Caguas, a town where Amara “was formed as an activist with Valle Garita of Urbe Apie, which was one of the organizations with whom we collaborated to work on the project.”  

The creator of the mural is artist Damaris Cruz, known as Dama Lola, whose main theme in her work is memory and everyday life. Cruz is an renowned muralist who has participated in several urban art competitions and has murals in different parts of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

Fifth stop: Humacao

We move to the Perla del Oriente, highlighting two murals created in two editions of Humacao Grita, an urban art festival dedicated to decorating the urban area and give emerging artists space to present their talent.

The first mural is dedicated to poet, declaimer and singer Anjelamaría Dávila, who was part of the group Guajana, led by poet Vicente Rodríguez Nietzsche in the 1960s, and was considered one of the most outstanding poetic voices of her time.

“In 11th grade, a teacher introduced us to Ángela María's poetry and it really caught my attention because she is one of the first feminist figures in Puerto Rico (that I knew),” Rafael Enrique Vega, aka Rafique, the artist who created the mural, told Platea. The art shows the poet in front of some of her poems’ verses, especially those from her poetry collections La querencia and Animal fiero y tierno.

“One of my favorites is Animal fiero y tierno because it represents that tender and wild part, that rage of all the complications that were given to Anjelamaría for being Black, a woman, a feminist and everything else, in the 1980-90s,” Vega said.

The second mural is titled “Libre y peligrosa” (“Free and dangerous”), honoring women fighting in the streets. It was part of the second edition of Humacao Grita, in which they convened only women artists, perhaps the only urban art festival that does this in Puerto Rico, according to Raysa Rodríguez García, of Colectivo Moriviví, the group that developed the mural.

“We were inspired by the song Libre y peligrosa by Plena Combativa, a group that existed at the time. Based on the lyrics, we made the different scenes,” said Rodríguez García.

Taking the plena as a protest rhythm, the first scene, located on the left, refers to Cortaron a Elena, a classic Puerto Rican plena that talks about an incident of gender violence. They use as a base an engraving made by artist Rafael Trufiño for the Plenas Portfolio, directed by Irene Delano in collaboration with artist Lorenzo Homar.

On the right, the rest of the mural has “women playing plena, with fists in the air or declaiming” and phrases from Libre y peligrosa, a contemporary plena that is a feminist anthem against gender violence.

Sixth stop: Adjuntas

We crossed the island and arrived at La Ciudad del Gigante Dormido, to highlight a work of art that, although not a mural, highlights the legacy of community leader and environmental activist Faustina “Tinti” Deyá Díaz, co-founder of Casa Pueblo. It is a posthumous tribute made by painter and writer Antonio Martorell, who titled the piece “Ella despierta, el gigante dormido” (“She awakens, the sleeping giant”) and is located precisely at the headquarters of the community self-management project that Tinti conceived.

In the painting, Deyá Díaz is drinking coffee in front of the mountain, “establishing the Sleeping Giant as a symbol not only of the people of Adjuntas, but of the people of Puerto Rico, who need to wake up. And she is always awake, even when she is dead, she is awake,” Martorell told Platea. “This work tries to awaken these people to a position of freedom, of energy, not only of solar energy, but of human energy.”

The work was painted in acrylic on a flowery canvas, which can be seen in Tinti's suit. It is a painting that was conceived after Martorell painted, a few years ago, another work of the son of Deyá Díaz, who died suddenly in 2009.

According to the artist, Tinti was “a luminous person, but without fuss. She exercised a quiet authority, the quiet authority that comes from good deeds and patriotic feelings translated into actions. That was felt... She was a very simple woman, very pleasant, but very brave because when she had to speak out to anyone, she did it. She was not an aggressive person, but a person who knew how to defend what was hers and that of her people”.

Martorell donated the artwork to Casa Pueblo, which made a poster-sized reproduction of it and is used to support the cause, which includes solar energy projects, a community forest, a radio station and more.

Seventh stop: Lares

We end this historical and artistic route in the Ciudad del Grito, with a mural that was part of the first edition of the urban art festival El Grito del Arte. Created by Colectivo Moriviví, it is titled “Las mujeres hacen matria” (“Women make matria”) and honors seamstress and revolutionary leader Mariana Bracetti, recognized as the person who embroidered the first Puerto Rican flag for the independence movement of the Grito de Lares, on September 23, 1868.

“We represented Mariana Bracetti sewing the flag. From the flag are interwoven or born names of different figures of Puerto Rican women who have also contributed to the fight,” explained Rodríguez García. The artists' intention was not only to honor Bracetti and her political legacy, but also to “name other women who have also contributed” to the cause.